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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgina’s Reasons, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Georgina’s Reasons
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21771]
+Last Updated: September 18, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGINA’S REASONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+GEORGINA’S REASONS
+
+By Henry James
+
+1885
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+She was certainly a singular girl, and if he felt at the end that he
+did n’t know her nor understand her, it is not surprising that he should
+have felt it at the beginning. But he felt at the beginning what he
+did not feel at the end, that her singularity took the form of a charm
+which--once circumstances had made them so intimate--it was impossible
+to resist or conjure away. He had a strange impression (it amounted
+at times to a positive distress, and shot through the sense of
+pleasure--morally speaking--with the acuteness of a sudden twinge of
+neuralgia) that it would be better for each of them that they should
+break off short and never see each other again. In later years he called
+this feeling a foreboding, and remembered two or three occasions when he
+had been on the point of expressing it to Georgina. Of course, in fact,
+he never expressed it; there were plenty of good reasons for that. Happy
+love is not disposed to assume disagreeable duties, and Raymond Benyon’s
+love was happy, in spite of grave presentiments, in spite of the
+singularity of his mistress and the insufferable rudeness of her
+parents. She was a tall, fair girl, with a beautiful cold eye and a
+smile of which the perfect sweetness, proceeding from the lips, was full
+of compensation; she had auburn hair of a hue that could be qualified as
+nothing less than gorgeous, and she seemed to move through life with a
+stately grace, as she would have walked through an old-fashioned minuet.
+Gentlemen connected with the navy have the advantage of seeing many
+types of women; they are able to compare the ladies of New York with
+those of Valparaiso, and those of Halifax with those of the Cape of Good
+Hope. Eaymond Benyon had had these advantages, and being very fond
+of women he had learnt his lesson; he was in a position to appreciate
+Georgina Gressie’s fine points. She looked like a duchess,--I don’t mean
+that in foreign ports Benyon had associated with duchesses,--and she
+took everything so seriously. That was flattering for the young man,
+who was only a lieutenant, detailed for duty at the Brooklyn navy-yard,
+without a penny in the world but his pay, with a set of plain, numerous,
+seafaring, God-fearing relations in New Hampshire, a considerable
+appearance of talent, a feverish, disguised ambition, and a slight
+impediment in his speech.
+
+He was a spare, tough young man, his dark hair was straight and
+fine, and his face, a trifle pale, was smooth and carefully drawn.
+He stammered a little, blushing when he did so, at long intervals.
+I scarcely know how he appeared on shipboard, but on shore, in his
+civilian’s garb, which was of the neatest, he had as little as possible
+an aroma of winds and waves. He was neither salt nor brown, nor red, nor
+particularly “hearty.” He never twitched up his trousers, nor, so far as
+one could see, did he, with his modest, attentive manner, carry himself
+as one accustomed to command. Of course, as a subaltern, he had more
+to do in the way of obeying. He looked as if he followed some sedentary
+calling, and was, indeed, supposed to be decidedly intellectual. He
+was a lamb with women, to whose charms he was, as I have hinted,
+susceptible; but with men he was different, and, I believe, as much of a
+wolf as was necessary. He had a manner of adoring the handsome, insolent
+queen of his affections (I will explain in a moment why I call
+her insolent); indeed, he looked up to her literally as well as
+sentimentally; for she was the least bit the taller of the two. He had
+met her the summer before, on the piazza of a hotel at Fort Hamilton, to
+which, with a brother officer, in a dusty buggy, he had driven over from
+Brooklyn to spend a tremendously hot Sunday,--the kind of day when the
+navy-yard was loathsome; and the acquaintance had been renewed by his
+calling in Twelfth Street on New-Year’s Day,--a considerable time
+to wait for a pretext, but which proved the impression had not been
+transitory. The acquaintance ripened, thanks to a zealous cultivation
+(on his part) of occasions which Providence, it must be confessed,
+placed at his disposal none too liberally; so that now Georgina took
+up all his thoughts and a considerable part of his time. He was in love
+with her, beyond a doubt; but he could not flatter himself that she was
+in love with him, though she appeared willing (what was so strange) to
+quarrel with her family about him. He did n’t see how she could really
+care for him,--she seemed marked out by nature for so much greater
+a fortune; and he used to say to her, “Ah, you don’t--there’s no use
+talking, you don’t--really care for me at all!” To which she answered,
+“Really? You are very particular. It seems to me it’s real enough if I
+let you touch one of my fingertips! “That was one of her ways of being
+insolent Another was simply her manner of looking at him, or at
+other people (when they spoke to her), with her hard, divine blue
+eye,--looking quietly, amusedly, with the air of considering (wholly
+from her own point of view) what they might have said, and then turning
+her head or her back, while, without taking the trouble to answer them,
+she broke into a short, liquid, irrelevant laugh. This may seem to
+contradict what I said just now about her taking the young lieutenant
+in the navy seriously. What I mean is that she appeared to take him more
+seriously than she took anything else. She said to him once, “At any
+rate you have the merit of not being a shop-keeper;” and it was by this
+epithet she was pleased to designate most of the young men who at that
+time flourished in the best society of New York. Even if she had rather
+a free way of expressing general indifference, a young lady is supposed
+to be serious enough when she consents to marry you. For the rest,
+as regards a certain haughtiness that might be observed in Geoigina
+Gressie, my story will probably throw sufficient light upon it She
+remarked to Benyon once that it was none of his business why she liked
+him, but that, to please herself, she did n’t mind telling him she
+thought the great Napoleon, before he was celebrated, before he had
+command of the army of Italy, must have looked something like him;
+and she sketched in a few words the sort of figure she imagined
+the incipient Bonaparte to have been,--short, lean, pale, poor,
+intellectual, and with a tremendous future under his hat Benyon asked
+himself whether _he_ had a tremendous future, and what in the world
+Geoigina expected of him in the coming years. He was flattered at the
+comparison, he was ambitious enough not to be frightened at it, and he
+guessed that she perceived a certain analogy between herself and the
+Empress Josephine. She would make a very good empress. That was true;
+Georgina was remarkably imperial. This may not at first seem to make it
+more clear why she should take into her favor an aspirant who, on the
+face of the matter, was not original, and whose Corsica was a flat New
+England seaport; but it afterward became plain that he owed his brief
+happiness--it was very brief--to her father’s opposition; her father’s
+and her mother’s, and even her uncles’ and her aunts’. In those days,
+in New York, the different members of a family took an interest in its
+alliances, and the house of Gressie looked askance at an engagement
+between the most beautiful of its daughters and a young man who was not
+in a paying business. Georgina declared that they were meddlesome and
+vulgar,--she could sacrifice her own people, in that way, without
+a scruple,--and Benyon’s position improved from the moment that Mr.
+Gressie--ill-advised Mr. Gressie--ordered the girl to have nothing to do
+with him. Georgina was imperial in this--that she wouldn’t put up with
+an order. When, in the house in Twelfth Street, it began to be talked
+about that she had better be sent to Europe with some eligible friend,
+Mrs. Portico, for instance, who was always planning to go, and who
+wanted as a companion some young mind, fresh from manuals and extracts,
+to serve as a fountain of history and geography,--when this scheme for
+getting Georgina out of the way began to be aired, she immediately said
+to Raymond Benyon, “Oh, yes, I ‘ll marry you!” She said it in such an
+off-hand way that, deeply as he desired her, he was almost tempted to
+answer, “But, my dear, have you really thought about it?”
+
+This little drama went on, in New York, in the ancient days, when
+Twelfth Street had but lately ceased to be suburban, when the squares
+had wooden palings, which were not often painted; when there were
+poplars in important thoroughfares and pigs in the lateral ways; when
+the theatres were miles distant from Madison Square, and the battered
+rotunda of Castle Garden echoed with expensive vocal music; when “the
+park” meant the grass-plats of the city hall, and the Bloomingdale
+road was an eligible drive; when Hoboken, of a summer afternoon, was a
+genteel resort, and the handsomest house in town was on the corner
+of the Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth Street. This will strike the modern
+reader, I fear, as rather a primitive epoch; but I am not sure that the
+strength of human passions is in proportion to the elongation of a city.
+Several of them, at any rate, the most robust and most familiar,--love,
+ambition, jealousy, resentment, greed,--subsisted in considerable force
+in the little circle at which we have glanced, where a view by no means
+favorable was taken of Raymond Benyon’s attentions to Miss Gressie.
+Unanimity was a family trait among these people (Georgina was an
+exception), especially in regard to the important concerns of life, such
+as marriages and closing scenes. The Gressies hung together; they
+were accustomed to do well for themselves and for each other. They did
+everything well: got themselves born well (they thought it excellent to
+be born a Gressie), lived well, married well, died well, and managed to
+be well spoken of afterward. In deference to this last-mentioned habit,
+I must be careful what I say of them. They took an interest in each
+other’s concerns, an interest that could never be regarded as of a
+meddlesome nature, inasmuch as they all thought alike about all their
+affairs, and interference took the happy form of congratulation and
+encouragement. These affairs were invariably lucky, and, as a general
+thing, no Gressie had anything to do but feel that another Gressie had
+been almost as shrewd and decided as he himself would have been. The
+great exception to that, as I have said, was this case of Georgina, who
+struck such a false note, a note that startled them all, when she told
+her father that she should like to unite herself to a young man engaged
+in the least paying business that any Gressie had ever heard of. Her two
+sisters had married into the most flourishing firms, and it was not
+to be thought of that--with twenty cousins growing up around her--she
+should put down the standard of success. Her mother had told her a
+fortnight before this that she must request Mr. Benyon to cease coming
+to the house; for hitherto his suit had been of the most public and
+resolute character. He had been conveyed up town from the Brooklyn
+ferry, in the “stage,” on certain evenings, had asked for Miss Georgina
+at the door of the house in Twelfth Street, and had sat with her in the
+front parlor if her parents happened to occupy the back, or in the back
+if the family had disposed itself in the front. Georgina, in her way,
+was a dutiful girl, and she immediately repeated her mother’s admonition
+to Beuyon. He was not surprised, for though he was aware that he had
+not, as yet, a great knowledge of society, he flattered himself he could
+tell when--and where--a young man was not wanted. There were houses in
+Brooklyn where such an animal was much appreciated, and there the signs
+were quite different They had been discouraging--except on Georgina’s
+pail--from the first of his calling in Twelfth Street Mr. and Mrs.
+Gressie used to look at each other in silence when he came in, and
+indulge in strange, perpendicular salutations, without any shaking of
+hands. People did that at Portsmouth, N.H., when they were glad to
+see you; but in New York there was more luxuriance, and gesture had a
+different value. He had never, in Twelfth Street, been asked to “take
+anything,” though the house had a delightful suggestion, a positive
+aroma, of sideboards,--as if there were mahogany “cellarettes” under
+every table. The old people, moreover, had repeatedly expressed surprise
+at the quantity of leisure that officers in the navy seemed to enjoy.
+The only way in which they had not made themselves offensive was
+by always remaining in the other room; though at times even this
+detachment, to which he owed some delightful moments, presented itself
+to Benyon as a form of disapprobation. Of course, after Mrs. Gressie’s
+message, his visits were practically at an end; he would n’t give the
+girl up, but he would n’t be beholden to her father for the opportunity
+to converse with her. Nothing was left for the tender couple--there
+was a curious mutual mistrust in their tenderness--but to meet in the
+squares, or in the topmost streets, or in the sidemost avenues, on
+the afternoons of spring. It was especially during this phase of their
+relations that Georgina struck Benyon as imperial Her whole person
+seemed to exhale a tranquil, happy consciousness of having broken a law.
+She never told him how she arranged the matter at home, how she found it
+possible always to keep the appointments (to meet him out of the house)
+that she so boldly made, in what degree she dissimulated to her parents,
+and how much, in regard to their continued acquaintance, the old people
+suspected and accepted. If Mr. and Mrs. Gressie had forbidden him the
+house, it was not, apparently, because they wished her to walk with him
+in the Tenth Avenue or to sit at his side under the blossoming lilacs
+in Stuyvesant Square. He didn’t believe that she told lies in Twelfth
+Street; he thought she was too imperial to lie; and he wondered what she
+said to her mother when, at the end of nearly a whole afternoon of vague
+peregrination with her lover, this bridling, bristling matron asked her
+where she had been. Georgina was capable of simply telling the truth;
+and yet if she simply told the truth, it was a wonder that she had not
+been simply packed off to Europe.
+
+Benyon’s ignorance of her pretexts is a proof that this rather
+oddly-mated couple never arrived at perfect intimacy,--in spite of a
+fact which remains to be related. He thought of this afterwards, and
+thought how strange it was that he had not felt more at liberty to ask
+her what she did for him, and how she did it, and how much she suffered
+for him. She would probably not have admitted that she suffered at all,
+and she had no wish to pose for a martyr. Benyon remembered this, as
+I say, in the after years, when he tried to explain to himself certain
+things which simply puzzled him; it came back to him with the vision,
+already faded, of shabby cross-streets, straggling toward rivers, with
+red sunsets, seen through a haze of dust, at the end; a vista through
+which the figures of a young man and a girl slowly receded and
+disappeared,--strolling side by side, with the relaxed pace of desultory
+talk, but more closely linked as they passed into the distance, linked
+by its at last appearing safe to them--in the Tenth Avenue--that the
+young lady should take his arm. They were always approaching that
+inferior thoroughfare; but he could scarcely have told you, in those
+days, what else they were approaching. He had nothing in the world but
+his pay, and he felt that this was rather a “mean” income to offer Miss
+Gressie. Therefore he did n’t put it forward; what he offered, instead,
+was the expression--crude often, and almost boyishly extravagant--of a
+delighted admiration of her beauty, the tenderest tones of his voice,
+the softest assurances of his eye and the most insinuating pressure of
+her hand at those moments when she consented to place it in his arm.
+All this was an eloquence which, if necessary, might have been condensed
+into a single sentence; but those few words were scarcely needful, when
+it was as plain that he expected--in general--she would marry him, as it
+was indefinite that he counted upon her for living on a few hundreds
+a year. If she had been a different girl he might have asked her to
+wait,--might have talked to her of the coming of better days, of his
+prospective promotion, of its being wiser, perhaps, that he should leave
+the navy and look about for a more lucrative career. With Georgina it
+was difficult to go into such questions; she had no taste whatever for
+detail. She was delightful as a woman to love, because when a young man
+is in love he discovers that; but she could not be called helpful, for
+she never suggested anything. That is, she never had done so till the
+day she really proposed--for that was the form it took--to become his
+wife without more delay. “Oh, yes, I will marry you;” these words, which
+I quoted a little way back, were not so much the answer to something he
+had said at the moment, as the light conclusion of a report she had just
+made, for the first time, of her actual situation in her father’s house.
+
+“I am afraid I shall have to see less of you,” she had begun by saying.
+“They watch me so much.”
+
+“It is very little already,” he answered. “What is once or twice a
+week?”
+
+“That’s easy for you to say. You are your own master, but you don’t know
+what I go through.”
+
+“Do they make it very bad for you, dearest? Do they make scenes?” Benyon
+asked.
+
+“No, of course not. Don’t you know us enough to know how we behave? No
+scenes,--that would be a relief. However, I never make them myself, and
+I never will--that’s one comfort for you, for the future, if you want to
+know. Father and mother keep very quiet, looking at me as if I were one
+of the lost, with hard, screwing eyes, like gimlets. To me they scarcely
+say anything, but they talk it all over with each other, and try and
+decide what is to be done. It’s my belief that father has written to the
+people in Washington--what do you call it! the Department--to have you
+moved away from Brooklyn,--to have you sent to sea.”
+
+“I guess that won’t do much good. They want me in Brooklyn, they don’t
+want me at sea.”
+
+“Well, they are capable of going to Europe for a year, on purpose to
+take me,” Geoigina said.
+
+“How can they take you, if you won’t go? And if you should go, what good
+would it do, if you were only to find me here when you came back, just
+the same as you left me?”
+
+“Oh, well!” said Georgina, with her lovely smile, “of course they think
+that absence would cure me of--cure me of--” And she paused, with a
+certain natural modesty, not saying exactly of what.
+
+“Cure you of what, darling? Say it, please say it,” the young man
+murmured, drawing her hand surreptitiously into his arm.
+
+“Of my absurd infatuation!”
+
+“And would it, dearest?”
+
+“Yes, very likely. But I don’t mean to try. I sha’n’t go to Europe,--not
+when I don’t want to. But it’s better I should see less of you,--even
+that I should appear--a little--to give you up.”
+
+“A little? What do you call a little?”
+
+Georgina said nothing, for a moment. “Well, that, for instance, you
+should n’t hold my hand quite so tight!” And she disengaged this
+conscious member from the pressure of his arm.
+
+“What good will that do?” Benyon asked,
+
+“It will make them think it ‘s all over,--that we have agreed to part.”
+
+“And as we have done nothing of the kind, how will that help us?”
+
+They had stopped at the crossing of a street; a heavy dray was lumbering
+slowly past them. Georgina, as she stood there, turned her face to
+her lover, and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At last:
+“Nothing will help us; I don’t think we are very happy,” she answered,
+while her strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about her
+beautiful lips.
+
+“I don’t understand how you see things. I thought you were going to say
+you would marry me!” Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though the
+dray had passed.
+
+“Oh, yes, I will marry you!” And she moved away, across the street. That
+was the manner in which she had said it, and it was very characteristic
+of her. When he saw that she really meant it, he wished they were
+somewhere else,--he hardly knew where the proper place would be,--so
+that he might take her in his arms. Nevertheless, before they separated
+that day he had said to her he hoped she remembered they would be very
+poor, reminding her how great a change she would find it She answered
+that she should n’t mind, and presently she said that if this was all
+that prevented them the sooner they were married the better. The next
+time he saw her she was quite of the same opinion; but he found, to his
+surprise, it was now her conviction that she had better not leave her
+father’s house. The ceremony should take place secretly, of course; but
+they would wait awhile to let their union be known.
+
+“What good will it do us, then?” Raymond Benyon asked.
+
+Georgina colored. “Well, if you don’t know, I can’t tell you!”
+
+Then it seemed to him that he did know. Yet, at the same time, he could
+not see why, once the knot was tied, secrecy should be required. When
+he asked what special event they were to wait for, and what should give
+them the signal to appear as man and wife, she answered that her parents
+would probably forgive her, if they were to discover, not too abruptly,
+after six months, that she had taken the great step. Benyon supposed
+that she had ceased to care whether they forgave her or not; but he
+had already perceived that women are full of inconsistencies. He had
+believed her capable of marrying him out of bravado, but the pleasure of
+defiance was absent if the marriage was kept to themselves. Now, too, it
+appeared that she was not especially anxious to defy,--she was disposed
+rather to manage, to cultivate opportunities and reap the fruits of a
+waiting game.
+
+“Leave it to me. Leave it to me. You are only a blundering man,”
+ Georgina said. “I shall know much better than you the right moment for
+saying, ‘Well, you may as well make the best of it, because we have
+already done it!’”
+
+That might very well be, but Benyon did n’t quite understand, and he was
+awkwardly anxious (for a lover) till it came over him afresh that
+there was one thing at any rate in his favor, which was simply that
+the loveliest girl he had ever seen was ready to throw herself into his
+arms. When he said to her, “There is one thing I hate in this plan of
+yours,--that, for ever so few weeks, so few days, your father should
+support my wife,”--when he made this homely remark, with a little flush
+of sincerity in his face, she gave him a specimen of that unanswerable
+laugh of hers, and declared that it would serve Mr. Gressie right for
+being so barbarous and so horrid. It was Benyon’s view that from the
+moment she disobeyed her father, she ought to cease to avail herself
+of his protection; but I am bound to add that he was not particularly
+surprised at finding this a kind of honor in which her feminine
+nature was little versed. To make her his wife first--at the earliest
+moment--whenever she would, and trust to fortune, and the new influence
+he should have, to give him, as soon thereafter as possible, complete
+possession of her,--this rather promptly presented itself to the young
+man as the course most worthy of a person of spirit. He would be only
+a pedant who would take nothing because he could not get everything at
+once. They wandered further than usual this afternoon, and the dusk was
+thick by the time he brought her back to her father’s door. It was not
+his habit to como so near it, but to-day they had so much to talk about
+that he actually stood with her for ten minutes at the foot of the
+steps. He was keeping her hand in his, and she let it rest there while
+she said,--by way of a remark that should sum up all their reasons and
+reconcile their differences,--
+
+“There’s one great thing it will do, you know; it will make me safe.”
+
+“Safe from what?”
+
+“From marrying any one else.”
+
+“Ah, my girl, if you were to do that--!” Benyon exclaimed; but he did
+n’t mention the other branch of the contingency. Instead of this, he
+looked up at the blind face of the house--there were only dim lights in
+two or three windows, and no apparent eyes--and up and down the empty
+street, vague in the friendly twilight; after which he drew Georgina
+Gressie to his breast and gave her a long, passionate kiss. Yes,
+decidedly, he felt, they had better be married. She had run quickly up
+the steps, and while she stood there, with her hand on the bell, she
+almost hissed at him, under her breath, “Go away, go away; Amanda’s
+coming!” Amanda was the parlor-maid, and it was in those terms that the
+Twelfth Street Juliet dismissed her Brooklyn Romeo. As he wandered back
+into the Fifth Avenue, where the evening air was conscious of a vernal
+fragrance from the shrubs in the little precinct of the pretty Gothic
+church ornamenting that charming part of the street, he was too absorbed
+in the impression of the delightful contact from which the girl had
+violently released herself to reflect that the great reason she had
+mentioned a moment before was a reason for their marrying, of course,
+but not in the least a reason for their not making it public. But, as I
+said in the opening lines of this chapter, if he did not understand his
+mistress’s motives at the end, he cannot be expected to have understood
+them at the beginning.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Mrs. Portico, as we know, was always talking about going to Europe;
+but she had not yet--I mean a year after the incident I have just
+related--put her hand upon a youthful cicerone. Petticoats, of course,
+were required; it was necessary that her companion should be of the sex
+which sinks most naturally upon benches, in galleries and cathredrals,
+and pauses most frequently upon staircases that ascend to celebrated
+views. She was a widow, with a good fortune and several sons, all of
+whom were in Wall Street, and none of them capable of the relaxed pace
+at which she expected to take her foreign tour. They were all in a state
+of tension. They went through life standing. She was a short, broad,
+high-colored woman, with a loud voice, and superabundant black hair,
+arranged in a way peculiar to herself,--with so many combs and bands
+that it had the appearance of a national coiffure. There was an
+impression in New York, about 1845, that the style was Danish; some one
+had said something about having seen it in Schleswig-Holstein.
+
+Mrs. Portico had a bold, humorous, slightly flamboyant look; people who
+saw her for the first time received an impression that her late husband
+had married the daughter of a barkeeper or the proprietress of a
+menageria. Her high, hoarse, good-natured voice seemed to connect her in
+some way with public life; it was not pretty enough to suggest that she
+might have been an actress. These ideas quickly passed away, however,
+even if you were not sufficiently initiated to know--as all the
+Grossies, for instance, knew so well--that her origin, so far from
+being enveloped in mystery, was almost the sort of thing she might have
+boasted of. But in spite of the high pitch of her appearance, she didn’t
+boast of anything; she was a genial, easy, comical, irreverent person,
+with a large charity, a democratic, fraternizing turn of mind, and a
+contempt for many worldly standards, which she expressed not in the
+least in general axioms (for she had a mortal horror of philosophy), but
+in violent ejaculations on particular occasions. She had not a grain of
+moral timidity, and she fronted a delicate social problem as sturdily as
+she would have barred the way of a gentleman she might have met in her
+vestibule with the plate-chest The only thing which prevented her being
+a bore in orthodox circles was that she was incapable of discussion. She
+never lost her temper, but she lost her vocabulary, and ended quietly
+by praying that Heaven would give her an opportunity to _show_ what she
+believed.
+
+She was an old friend of Mr. and Mrs. Gressie, who esteemed her for the
+antiquity of her lineage and the frequency of her subscriptions, and to
+whom she rendered the service of making them feel liberal,--like
+people too sure of their own position to be frightened. She was their
+indulgence, their dissipation, their point of contact with dangerous
+heresies; so long as they continued to see her they could not be accused
+of being narrow-minded,--a matter as to which they were perhaps vaguely
+conscious of the necessity of taking their precautions. Mrs. Portico
+never asked herself whether she liked the Gressies; she had no
+disposition for morbid analysis, she accepted transmitted associations,
+and she found, somehow, that her acquaintance with these people helped
+her to relieve herself. She was always making scenes in their
+drawing-room, scenes half indignant, half jocose, like all her
+manifestations, to which it must be confessed that they adapted
+themselves beautifully. They never “met” her in the language of
+controversy; but always collected to watch her, with smiles and
+comfortable platitudes, as if they envied her superior richness of
+temperament She took an interest in Georgina, who seemed to her
+different from the others, with suggestions about her of being likely
+not to marry so unrefreshingly as her sisters had done, and of a high,
+bold standard of duty. Her sisters had married from duty, but Mrs.
+Portico would rather have chopped off one of her large, plump hands than
+behave herself so well as that She had, in her daughterless condition, a
+certain ideal of a girl that should be beautiful and romantic, with
+lustrous eyes, and a little persecuted, so that she, Mrs. Portico, might
+get her out of her troubles. She looked to Georgina, to a considerable
+degree, to gratify her in this way; but she had really never understood
+Geoigina at all She ought to have been shrewd, but she lacked this
+refinement, and she never understood anything until after many
+disappointments and vexations. It was difficult to startle her, but she
+was much startled by a communication that this young lady made her one
+fine spring morning. With her florid appearance and her speculative
+mind, she was probably the most innocent woman in New York.
+
+Georgina came very early,--earlier even than visits were paid in New
+York thirty years ago; and instantly, without any preface, looking her
+straight in the face, told Mrs. Portico that she was in great trouble
+and must appeal to her for assistance. Georgina had in her aspect no
+symptom of distress; she was as fresh and beautiful as the April
+day itself; she held up her head and smiled, with a sort of familiar
+bravado, looking like a young woman who would naturally be on good terms
+with fortune. It was not in the least in the tone of a person making a
+confession or relating a misadventure that she presently said: “Well,
+you must know, to begin with--of course, it will surprise you--that I ‘m
+married.”
+
+“Married, Georgina Grossie!” Mrs. Portico repeated in her most resonant
+tones.
+
+Georgina got up, walked with her majestic step across the room, and
+closed the door. Then she stood there, her back pressed against the
+mahogany panels, indicating only by the distance she had placed between
+herself and her hostess the consciousness of an irregular position. “I
+am not Georgina Gressie! I am Georgina Benyon,--and it has become plain,
+within a short time, that the natural consequence will take place.”
+
+Mrs. Portico was altogether bewildered. “The natural consequence?” she
+exclaimed, staring.
+
+“Of one’s being married, of course,--I suppose you know what that is. No
+one must know anything about it. I want you to take me to Europe.”
+
+Mrs. Portico now slowly rose from her place, and approached her visitor,
+looking at her from head to foot as she did so, as if to challenge the
+truth of her remarkable announcement. She rested her hands on Georgina’s
+shoulders a moment, gazing into her blooming face, and then she drew her
+closer and kissed her. In this way the girl was conducted back to the
+sofa, where, in a conversation of extreme intimacy, she opened Mrs.
+Portico’s eyes wider than they had ever been opened before. She was
+Raymond Benyon’s wife; they had been married a year, but no one knew
+anything about it. She had kept it from every one, and she meant to go
+on keeping it. The ceremony had taken place in a little Episcopal church
+at Harlem, one Sunday afternoon, after the service. There was no one in
+that dusty suburb who knew them; the clergyman, vexed at being detained,
+and wanting to go home to tea, had made no trouble; he tied the knot
+before they could turn round. It was ridiculous how easy it had been.
+Raymond had told him frankly that it must all be under the rose, as the
+young lady’s family disapproved of what she was doing. But she was of
+legal age, and perfectly free; he could see that for himself. The parson
+had given a grunt as he looked at her over his spectacles. It was not
+very complimentary; it seemed to say that she was indeed no chicken. Of
+course she looked old for a girl; but she was not a girl now, was she?
+Raymond had certified his own identity as an officer in the United
+States Navy (he had papers, besides his uniform, which he wore), and
+introduced the clergyman to a friend he had brought with him, who was
+also in the navy, a venerable paymaster. It was he who gave Georgina
+away, as it were; he was an old, old man, a regular grandmother, and
+perfectly safe. He had been married three times himself. After the
+ceremony she went back to her father’s; but she saw Mr. Benyon the next
+day. After that, she saw him--for a little while--pretty often. He
+was always begging her to come to him altogether; she must do him that
+justice. But she wouldn’t--she wouldn’t now--perhaps she would n’t
+ever. She had her reasons, which seemed to her very good, but were very
+difficult to explain. She would tell Mrs. Portico in plenty of time what
+they were. But that was not the question now, whether they were good or
+bad; the question was for her to get away from the country for several
+months,--far away from any one who had ever known her. She would like
+to go to some little place in Spain or Italy, where she should be out of
+the world until everything was over.
+
+Mrs. Portico’s heart gave a jump as this serene, handsome, familiar
+girl, sitting there with a hand in hers, and pouring forth this
+extraordinary tale, spoke of everything being over. There was a glossy
+coldness in it, an unnatural lightness, which suggested--poor Mrs.
+Portico scarcely knew what. If Georgina was to become a mother, it
+was to be supposed she was to remain a mother. She said there was a
+beautiful place in Italy--Genoa--of which Raymond had often spoken--and
+where he had been more than once,--he admired it so much; could n’t
+they go there and be quiet for a little while? She was asking a great
+favor,--that she knew very well; but if Mrs. Portico would n’t take her,
+she would find some one who would. They had talked of such a journey
+so often; and, certainly, if Mrs. Portico had been willing before, she
+ought to be much more willing now. The girl declared that she must do
+something,--go somewhere,--keep, in one way or another, her situation
+unperceived. There was no use talking to her about telling,--she would
+rather die than tell. No doubt it seemed strange, but she knew what she
+was about. No one had guessed anything yet,--she had succeeded perfectly
+in doing what she wished,--and her father and mother believed--as Mrs.
+Portico had believed,--had n’t she?--that, any time the last year,
+Raymond Beuyon was less to her than he had been before. Well, so he was;
+yes, he was. He had gone away--he was off, Heaven knew where--in the
+Pacific; she was alone, and now she would remain alone. The family
+believed it was all over,--with his going back to his ship, and other
+things, and they were right: for it _was_ over, or it would be soon.
+
+Mrs. Portico, by this time, had grown almost afraid of her young friend;
+_she_ had so little fear, she had even, as it were, so little shame. If
+the good lady had been accustomed to analyzing things a little more,
+she would have said she had so little conscience. She looked at Georgina
+with dilated eyes,--her visitor was so much the calmer of the two,--and
+exclaimed, and murmured, and sunk back, and sprung forward, and wiped
+her forehead with her pocket-handkerchief! There were things she didn’t
+understand; that they should all have been so deceived, that they should
+have thought Georgina was giving her lover up (they flattered themselves
+she was discouraged, or had grown tired of him), when she was really
+only making it impossible she should belong to any one else. And with
+this, her inconsequence, her capriciousness, her absence of motive, the
+way she contradicted herself, her apparent belief that she could hush up
+such a situation forever! There was nothing shameful in having married
+poor Mr. Benyon, even in a little church at Harlem, and being given away
+by a paymaster. It was much more shameful to be in such a state without
+being prepared to make the proper explanations. And she must have
+seen very little of her husband; she must have given him up--so far
+as meeting him went--almost as soon as she had taken him. Had not Mrs.
+Gressie herself told Mrs. Portico (in the preceding October, it must
+have been) that there now would be no need of sending Georgina away,
+inasmuch as the affair with the little navy man--a project in every way
+so unsuitable--had quite blown over?
+
+“After our marriage I saw him less, I saw him a great deal less,”
+ Georgina explained; but her explanation only appeared to make the
+mystery more dense.
+
+“I don’t see, in that case, what on earth you married him for!”
+
+“We had to be more careful; I wished to appear to have given him up. Of
+course we were really more intimate,--I saw him differently,” Georgina
+said, smiling.
+
+“I should think so! I can’t for the life of me see why you were n’t
+discovered.”
+
+“All I can say is we weren’t No doubt it’s remarkable. We managed very
+well,--that is, I managed,--he did n’t want to manage at all. And then,
+father and mother are incredibly stupid!”
+
+Mrs. Portico exhaled a comprehensive moan, feeling glad, on the whole,
+that she had n’t a daughter, while Georgina went on to furnish a few
+more details. Raymond Benyon, in the summer, had been ordered from
+Brooklyn to Charlestown, near Boston, where, as Mrs. Portico perhaps
+knew, there was another navy-yard, in which there was a temporary press
+of work, requiring more oversight He had remained there several months,
+during which he had written to her urgently to come to him, and during
+which, as well, he had received notice that he was to rejoin his ship a
+little later. Before doing so he came back to Brooklyn for a few weeks
+to wind up his work there, and then she had seen him--well, pretty
+often. That was the best time of all the year that had elapsed since
+their marriage. It was a wonder at home that nothing had then been
+guessed; because she had really been reckless, and Benyon had even tried
+to force on a disclosure. But they _were_ stupid, that was very certain.
+He had besought her again and again to put an end to their false
+position, but she did n’t want it any more than she had wanted it
+before. They had rather a bad parting; in fact, for a pair of lovers, it
+was a very queer parting indeed. He did n’t know, now, the thing she had
+come to tell Mrs. Portico. She had not written to him. He was on a very
+long cruise. It might be two years before he returned to the United
+States. “I don’t care how long he stays away,” Georgina said, very
+simply.
+
+“You haven’t mentioned why you married him. Perhaps you don’t remember,”
+ Mrs. Portico broke out, with her masculine laugh.
+
+“Oh, yes; I loved him!”
+
+“And you have got over that?”
+
+Georgina hesitated a moment. “Why, no, Mrs. Portico, of course I
+haven’t; Raymond’s a splendid fellow.”
+
+“Then why don’t you live with him? You don’t explain that.”
+
+“What would be the use when he’s always away? How can one live with a
+man that spends half his life in the South Seas? If he was n’t in
+the navy it would be different; but to go through everything,--I mean
+everything that making our marriage known would bring upon me,--the
+scolding and the exposure and the ridicule, the scenes at home,--to go
+through it all, just for the idea, and yet be alone here, just as I
+was before, without my husband after all,--with none of the good of
+him,”--and here Georgina looked at her hostess as if with the
+certitude that such an enumeration of inconveniences would touch her
+effectually,--“really, Mrs. Portico, I am bound to say I don’t think
+that would be worth while; I haven’t the courage for it.”
+
+“I never thought you were a coward,” said Mrs. Portico.
+
+“Well, I am not,--if you will give me time. I am very patient.”
+
+“I never thought that, either.”
+
+“Marrying changes one,” said Georgina, still smiling.
+
+“It certainly seems to have had a very peculiar effect upon you. Why
+don’t you make him leave the navy, and arrange your life comfortably,
+like every one else?”
+
+“I would n’t for the world interfere with his prospects--with his
+promotion. That is sure to come for him, and to come quickly, he has
+such talents. He is devoted to his profession; it would ruin him to
+leave it.”
+
+“My dear young woman, you are a wonderful creature!” Mrs. Portico
+exclaimed, looking at her companion as if she had been in a glass case.
+
+“So poor Raymond says,” Georgina answered, smiling more than ever.
+
+“Certainly, I should have been very sorry to marry a navy man; but if I
+had married him, I should stick to him, in the face of all the scoldings
+in the universe!”
+
+“I don’t know what your parents may have been; I know what mine are,”,
+Georgina replied, with some dignity. “When he’s a captain, we shall come
+out of hiding.”
+
+“And what shall you do meanwhile? What will you do with your children?
+Where will you hide them? What will you do with this one?”
+
+Georgina rested her eyes on her lap for a minute; then, raising them,
+she met those of Mrs. Portico. “Somewhere in Europe,” she said, in her
+sweet tone.
+
+“Georgina Gressie, you ‘re a monster!” the elder lady cried.
+
+“I know what I am about, and you will help me,” the girl went on.
+
+“I will go and tell your father and mother the whole story,--that’s what
+I will do!”
+
+“I am not in the least afraid of that, not in the least. You will help
+me,--I assure you that you will.”
+
+“Do you mean I will support the child?”
+
+Georgina broke into a laugh. “I do believe you would, if I were to ask
+you! But I won’t go so far as that; I have something of my own. All I
+want you to do is to be with me.”
+
+“At Genoa,--yes, you have got it all fixed! You say Mr. Benyon is so
+fond of the place. That’s all very well; but how will he like his infant
+being deposited there?”
+
+“He won’t like it at all. You see I tell you the whole truth,” said
+Georgina, gently.
+
+“Much obliged; it’s a pity you keep it all for me! It is in his power,
+then, to make you behave properly. _He_ can publish your marriage if you
+won’t; and if he does you will have to acknowledge your child.”
+
+“Publish, Mrs. Portico? How little you know my Raymond! He will never
+break a promise; he will go through fire first.”
+
+“And what have you got him to promise?’
+
+“Never to insist on a disclosure against my will; never to claim me
+openly as his wife till I think it is time; never to let any one know
+what has passed between us if I choose to keep it still a secret--to
+keep it for years--to keep it forever. Never to do anything in the
+matter himself, but to leave it to me. For this he has given me his
+solemn word of honor. And I know what that means!”
+
+Mrs. Portico, on the sofa, fairly bounded.
+
+“You _do_ know what you are about And Mr. Benyon strikes me as more
+fantastic even than yourself. I never heard of a man taking such an
+imbecile vow. What good can it do him?”
+
+“What good? The good it did him was that, it gratified me. At the
+time he took it he would have made any promise under the sun. It was
+a condition I exacted just at the very last, before the marriage took
+place. There was nothing at that moment he would have refused me;
+there was nothing I could n’t have made him do. He was in love to that
+degree--but I don’t want to boast,” said Georgina, with quiet grandeur.
+“He wanted--he wanted--” she added; but then she paused.
+
+“He does n’t seem to have wanted much!” Mrs. Portico cried, in a tone
+which made Georgina turn to the window, as if it might have reached the
+street.
+
+Her hostess noticed the movement and went on: “Oh, my dear, if I ever do
+tell your story, I will tell it so that people will hear it!”
+
+“You never will tell it. What I mean is, that Raymond wanted the
+sanction--of the affair at the church--because he saw that I would never
+do without it. Therefore, for him, the sooner we had it the better, and,
+to hurry it on, he was ready to take any pledge.”
+
+“You have got it pat enough,” said Mrs. Portico, in homely phrase. “I
+don’t know what you mean by sanctions, or what _you_ wanted of ‘em!”
+
+Georgina got up, holding rather higher than before that beautiful head
+which, in spite of the embarrassments of this interview, had not yet
+perceptibly abated of its elevation. “Would you have liked me to--to not
+marry?”
+
+Mrs. Portico rose also, and, flushed with the agitation of unwonted
+knowledge,--it was as if she had discovered a skeleton in her favorite
+cupboard,--faced her young friend for a moment. Then her conflicting
+sentiments resolved themselves into an abrupt question, uttered,--for
+Mrs. Portico,--with much solemnity: “Georgina Gressie, were you really
+in love with him?”
+
+The question suddenly dissipated the girl’s strange, studied, wilful
+coldness; she broke out, with a quick flash of passion,--a passion that,
+for the moment, was predominantly anger, “Why else, in Heaven’s name,
+should I have done what I have done? Why else should I have married him?
+What under the sun had I to gain?”
+
+A certain quiver in Georgina’s voice, a light in her eye which seemed to
+Mrs. Portico more spontaneous, more human, as she uttered these words,
+caused them to affect her hostess rather less painfully than anything
+she had yet said. She took the girl’s hand and emitted indefinite,
+admonitory sounds. “Help me, my dear old friend, help me,” Georgina
+continued, in a low, pleading tone; and in a moment Mrs. Portico saw
+that the tears were in her eyes.
+
+“You ‘re a queer mixture, my child,” she exclaimed. “Go straight home to
+your own mother, and tell her everything; that is your best help.”
+
+“You are kinder than my mother. You must n’t judge her by yourself.”
+
+“What can she do to you? How can she hurt you? We are not living in
+pagan times,” said Mrs. Portico, who was seldom so historical “Besides,
+you have no reason to speak of your mother--to think of her, even--so!
+She would have liked you to marry a man of some property; but she has
+always been a good mother to you.”
+
+At this rebuke Georgina suddenly kindled again; she was, indeed, as Mrs.
+Portico had said, a queer mixture. Conscious, evidently, that she could
+not satisfactorily justify her present stiffness, she wheeled round upon
+a grievance which absolved her from self-defence. “Why, then, did he
+make that promise, if he loved me? No man who really loved me would have
+made it,--and no man that was a man, as I understand being a man! He
+might have seen that I only did it to test him,--to see if he wanted to
+take advantage of being left free himself. It is a proof that he does
+n’t love me,--not as he ought to have done; and in such a case as that a
+woman is n’t bound to make sacrifices!”
+
+Mrs. Portico was not a person of a nimble intellect; her mind moved
+vigorously, but heavily; yet she sometimes made happy guesses. She saw
+that Georgia’s emotions were partly real and partly fictitious; that,
+as regards this last matter, especially, she was trying to “get up” a
+resentment, in order to excuse herself. The pretext was absurd, and the
+good lady was struck with its being heartless on the part of her young
+visitor to reproach poor Benyon with a concession on which she had
+insisted, and which could only be a proof of his devotion, inasmuch as
+he left her free while he bound himself. Altogether, Mrs. Portico was
+shocked and dismayed at such a want of simplicity in the behavior of a
+young person whom she had hitherto believed to be as candid as she was
+elegant, and her appreciation of this discovery expressed itself in the
+uncompromising remark: “You strike me as a very bad girl, my dear; you
+strike me as a very bad girl!”
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+It will doubtless seem to the reader very singular that, in spite of
+this reflection, which appeared to sum up her judgment of the matter,
+Mrs. Portico should, in the course of a very few days, have consented to
+everything that Georgina asked of her. I have thought it well to narrate
+at length the first conversation that took place between them, but I
+shall not trace further the details of the girl’s hard pleading, or
+the steps by which--in the face of a hundred robust and salutary
+convictions--the loud, kind, sharp, simple, sceptical, credulous woman
+took under her protection a damsel whose obstinacy she could not speak
+of without getting red with anger. It was the simple fact of Georgina’s
+personal condition that moved her; this young lady’s greatest eloquence
+was the seriousness of her predicament She might be bad, and she had a
+splendid, careless, insolent, fair-faced way of admitting it, which at
+moments, incoherently, inconsistently, and irresistibly, resolved the
+harsh confession into tears of weakness; but Mrs. Portico had known her
+from her rosiest years, and when Georgina declared that she could n’t go
+home, that she wished to be with her and not with her mother, that she
+could n’t expose herself,--how could she?--and that she must remain with
+her and her only till the day they should sail, the poor lady was forced
+to make that day a reality. She was overmastered, she was cajoled,
+she was, to a certain extent, fascinated. She had to accept Georgina’s
+rigidity (she had none of her own to oppose to it; she was only violent,
+she was not continuous), and once she did this, it was plain, after all,
+that to take her young friend to Europe was to help her, and to leave
+her alone was not to help her. Georgina literally frightened Mrs.
+Portico into compliance. She was evidently capable of strange things if
+thrown upon her own devices.
+
+So, from one day to another Mrs. Portico announced that she was really
+at last about to sail for foreign lands (her doctor having told her that
+if she did n’t look out she would get too old to enjoy them), and that
+she had invited that robust Miss Gressie, who could stand so long on her
+feet, to accompany her. There was joy in the house of Gressie at this
+announcement, for though the danger was over, it was a great general
+advantage to Georgina to go, and the Gressies were always elated at the
+prospect of an advantage. There was a danger that she might meet Mr.
+Benyon on the other side of the world; but it didn’t seem likely that
+Mrs. Portico would lend herself to a plot of that kind. If she had taken
+it into her head to favor their love affair, she would have done
+it frankly, and Georgina would have been married by this time. Her
+arrangements were made as quickly as her decision had been--or rather
+had appeared--slow; for this concerned those agile young men down town.
+Georgina was perpetually at her house; it was understood in Twelfth
+Street that she was talking over her future travels with her kind
+friend. Talk there was, of course to a considerable degree; but after it
+was settled they should start nothing more was said about the motive
+of the journey. Nothing was said, that is, till the night before they
+sailed; then a few words passed between them. Georgina had already
+taken leave of her relations in Twelfth Street, and was to sleep at
+Mrs. Portico’s in order to go down to the ship at an early hour. The
+two ladies were sitting together in the firelight, silent, with the
+consciousness of corded luggage, when the elder one suddenly remarked to
+her companion that she seemed to be taking a great deal upon herself in
+assuming that Raymond Benyon wouldn’t force her hand. _He_ might
+choose to acknowledge his child, if she didn’t; there were promises
+and promises, and many people would consider they had been let off when
+circumstances were so altered. She would have to reckon with Mr. Benyon
+more than she thought.
+
+“I know what I am about,” Georgina answered. “There is only one promise,
+for him. I don’t know what you mean by circumstances being altered.”
+
+“Everything seems to me to be changed,” poor Mrs. Portico murmured,
+rather tragically.
+
+“Well, he is n’t, and he never will! I am sure of him,--as sure as that
+I sit here. Do you think I would have looked at him if I had n’t known
+he was a man of his word?”
+
+“You have chosen him well, my dear,” said Mrs. Portico, who by this time
+was reduced to a kind of bewildered acquiescence.
+
+“Of course I have chosen him well! In such a matter as this he will be
+perfectly splendid.” Then suddenly, “Perfectly splendid,--that’s why I
+cared for him!” she repeated, with a flash of incongruous passion.
+
+This seemed to Mrs. Portico audacious to the point of being sublime; but
+she had given up trying to understand anything that the girl might
+say or do. She understood less and less, after they had disembarked in
+England and begun to travel southward; and she understood least of all
+when, in the middle of the winter, the event came off with which, in
+imagination, she had tried to familiarize herself, but which, when it
+occurred, seemed to her beyond measure strange and dreadful. It took
+place at Genoa, for Georgina had made up her mind that there would be
+more privacy in a big town than in a little; and she wrote to America
+that both Mrs. Portico and she had fallen in love with the place and
+would spend two or three months there. At that time people in the United
+States knew much less than to-day about the comparative attractions
+of foreign cities, and it was not thought surprising that absent
+New Yorkers should wish to linger in a seaport where they might find
+apartments, according to Georgina’s report, in a palace painted in
+fresco by Vandyke and Titian. Georgina, in her letters, omitted, it will
+be seen, no detail that could give color to Mrs. Portico’s long stay at
+Genoa. In such a palace--where the travellers hired twenty gilded rooms
+for the most insignificant sum--a remarkably fine boy came into the
+world. Nothing could have been more successful and comfortable than
+this transaction. Mrs. Portico was almost appalled at the facility and
+felicity of it. She was by this time in a pretty bad way, and--what
+had never happened to her before in her life--she suffered from chronic
+depression of spirits. She hated to have to lie, and now she was lying
+all the time. Everything she wrote home, everything that had been said
+or done in connection with their stay in Genoa, was a lie. The way
+they remained indoors to avoid meeting chance compatriots was a lie.
+Compatriots, in Genoa, at that period, were very rare; but nothing could
+exceed the businesslike completeness of Georgina’s precautions. Her
+nerves, her self-possession, her apparent want of feeling, excited on
+Mrs. Portico’s part a kind of gloomy suspense; a morbid anxiety to see
+how far her companion would go took possession of the excellent woman,
+who, a few months before, hated to fix her mind on disagreeable things.
+
+Georgina went very far indeed; she did everything in her power to
+dissimulate the origin of her child. The record of its birth was made
+under a false name, and he was baptized at the nearest church by a
+Catholic priest. A magnificent contadina was brought to light by
+the doctor in a village in the hills, and this big, brown, barbarous
+creature, who, to do her justice, was full of handsome, familiar smiles
+and coarse tenderness, was constituted nurse to Raymond Benyon’s son.
+She nursed him for a fortnight under the mother’s eye, and she was then
+sent back to her village with the baby in her arms and sundry gold coin
+knotted into a corner of her rude pocket-handkerchief. Mr. Gressie had
+given his daughter a liberal letter of credit on a London banker, and
+she was able, for the present, to make abundant provision for the little
+one. She called Mrs. Portico’s attention to the fact that she spent none
+of her money on futilities; she kept it all for her small pensioner
+in the Genoese hills. Mrs. Portico beheld these strange doings with a
+stupefaction that occasionally broke into passionate protest; then she
+relapsed into a brooding sense of having now been an accomplice so far
+that she must be an accomplice to the end. The two ladies went down to
+Rome--Georgina was in wonderful trim--to finish the season, and
+here Mrs. Portico became convinced that she intended to abandon her
+offspring. She had not driven into the country to see the nursling
+before leaving Genoa,--she had said that she could n’t bear to see it in
+such a place and among such people. Mrs. Portico, it must be added,
+had felt the force of this plea,--felt it as regards a plan of her own,
+given up after being hotly entertained for a few hours, of devoting a
+day, by herself, to a visit to the big contadina. It seemed to her that
+if she should see the child in the sordid hands to which Georgina had
+consigned it she would become still more of a participant than she was
+already. This young woman’s blooming hardness, after they got to Borne,
+acted upon her like a kind of Medusa-mask. She had seen a horrible
+thing, she had been mixed up with it, and her motherly heart had
+received a mortal chill. It became more clear to her every day that,
+though Georgina would continue to send the infant money in considerable
+quantities, she had dispossessed herself of it forever. Together with
+this induction a fixed idea settled in her mind,--the project of taking
+the baby herself, of making him her own, of arranging that matter with
+the father. The countenance she had given Georgina up to this point was
+an effective pledge that she would not expose her; but she could adopt
+the child without exposing her; she could say that he was a lovely
+baby--he was lovely, fortunately--whom she had picked up in a poor
+village in Italy,--a village that had been devastated by brigands. She
+would pretend--she could pretend; oh, yes, of course, she could pretend!
+Everything was imposture now, and she could go on to lie as she had
+begun. The falsity of the whole business sickened her; it made her so
+yellow that she scarcely knew herself in her glass. None the less, to
+rescue the child, even if she had to become falser still, would be in
+some measure an atonement for the treachery to which she had already
+lent herself. She began to hate Georgina, who had drawn her into such an
+atrocious current, and if it had not been for two considerations she
+would have insisted on their separating. One was the deference she owed
+to Mr. and Mrs. Gressie, who had reposed such a trust in her; the other
+was that she must keep hold of the mother till she had got possession of
+the infant Meanwhile, in this forced communion, her aversion to her
+companion increased; Georgina came to appear to her a creature of brass,
+of iron; she was exceedingly afraid of her, and it seemed to her now a
+wonder of wonders that she should ever have trusted her enough to come
+so far. Georgina showed no consciousness of the change in Mrs. Portico,
+though there was, indeed, at present, not even a pretence of confidence
+between the two. Miss Gressie--that was another lie, to which Mrs.
+Portico had to lend herself--was bent on enjoying Europe, and was
+especially delighted with Rome. She certainly had the courage of her
+undertaking, and she confessed to Mrs. Portico that she had left Raymond
+Benyon, and meant to continue to leave him, in ignorance of what had
+taken place at Genoa. There was a certain confidence, it must be said,
+in that. He was now in Chinese waters, and she probably should not see
+him for years.
+
+Mrs. Portico took counsel with herself, and the result of her cogitation
+was, that she wrote to Mr. Benyon that a charming little boy had
+been born to him, and that Georgina had put him to nurse with Italian
+peasants, but that, if he would kindly consent to it, she, Mrs. Portico,
+would bring him up much better than that. She knew not how to address
+her letter, and Georgina, even if _she_ should know, which was doubtful,
+would never tell her; so she sent the missive to the care of the
+Secretary of the Navy, at Washington, with an earnest request that it
+might immediately be forwarded. Such was Mrs. Portico’s last effort in
+this strange business of Georgina’s. I relate rather a complicated
+fact in a very few words when I say that the poor lady’s anxieties,
+indignations, repentances, preyed upon her until they fairly broke her
+down. Various persons whom she knew in Borne notified her that the air
+of the Seven Hills was plainly unfavorable to her, and she had made
+up her mind to return to her native land, when she found that, in her
+depressed condition, malarial fever had laid its hand upon her. She was
+unable to move, and the matter was settled for her in the course of an
+illness which, happily, was not prolonged. I have said that she was not
+obstinate, and the resistance that she made on the present occasion
+was not worthy even of her spasmodic energy. Brain-fever made its
+appearance, and she died at the end of three weeks, during which
+Georgina’s attentions to her patient and protectress had been
+unremitting. There were other Americans in Rome who, after this
+sad event, extended to the bereaved young lady every comfort and
+hospitality. She had no lack of opportunities for returning under a
+proper escort to New York. She selected, you may be sure, the best, and
+re-entered her father’s house, where she took to plain dressing; for she
+sent all her pocket-money, with the utmost secrecy, to the little boy in
+the Genoese hills.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+“Why should he come if he doesn’t like you? He is under no obligation,
+and he has his ship to look after. Why should he sit for an hour at a
+time, and why should he be so pleasant?”
+
+“Do you think he is very pleasant?” Kate Theory asked, turning away her
+face from her sister. It was important that Mildred should not see how
+little the expression of that charming countenance corresponded with the
+inquiry.
+
+This precaution was useless, however, for in a moment Mildred said, from
+the delicately draped couch, where she lay at the open window, “Kate
+Theory, don’t be affected!”
+
+“Perhaps it’s for you he comes. I don’t see why he should n’t; you are
+far more attractive than I, and you have a great deal more to say. How
+can he help seeing that you are the cleverest of the clever? You can
+talk to him of everything: of the dates of the different eruptions, of
+the statues and bronzes in the Museum, which you have never seen, poor
+darling! but which you know more about than he does, than any one does.
+What was it you began on last time? Oh, yes, you poured forth floods
+about Magna Græcia. And then--and then--” But with this Kate Theory
+paused; she felt it would n’t do to speak the words that had risen to
+her lips. That her sister was as beautiful as a saint, and as delicate
+and refined as an angel,--she had been on the point of saying something
+of that sort But Mildred’s beauty and delicacy were the fairness of
+mortal disease, and to praise her for her refinement was simply to
+intimate that she had the tenuity of a consumptive. So, after she had
+checked herself, the younger girl--she was younger only by a year
+or two--simply kissed her tenderly, and settled the knot of the lace
+handkerchief that was tied over her head. Mildred knew what she had
+been going to say,--knew why she had stopped. Mildred knew everything,
+without ever leaving her room, or leaving, at least, that little salon
+of their own, at the _pension_, which she had made so pretty by simply
+lying there, at the window that had the view of the bay and of Vesuvius,
+and telling Kate how to arrange and rearrange everything. Since it
+began to be plain that Mildred must spend her small remnant of years
+altogether in warm climates, the lot of the two sisters had been cast in
+the ungarnished hostelries of southern Europe. Their little sitting-room
+was sure to be very ugly, and Mildred was never happy till it was
+rearranged. Her sister fell to work, as a matter of course, the first
+day, and changed the place of all the tables, sofas, chairs, till every
+combination had been tried, and the invalid thought at last that there
+was a little effect Kate Theory had a taste of her own, and her ideas
+were not always the same as her sister’s; but she did whatever Mildred
+liked, and if the poor girl had told her to put the doormat on the
+dining-table, or the clock under the sofa, she would have obeyed without
+a murmur. Her own ideas, her personal tastes, had been folded up and put
+away, like garments out of season, in drawers and trunks, with camphor
+and lavender. They were not, as a general thing, for southern wear,
+however indispensable to comfort in the climate of New England, where
+poor Mildred had lost her health. Kate Theory, ever since this event,
+had lived for her companion, and it was almost an inconvenience for her
+to think that she was attractive to Captain Benyon. It was as if she
+had shut up her house and was not in a position to entertain. So long as
+Mildred should live, her own life was suspended; if there should be
+any time afterwards, perhaps she would take it up again; but for the
+present, in answer to any knock at her door, she could only call down
+from one of her dusty windows that she was not at home. Was it really in
+these terms she should have to dismiss Captain Benyon? If Mildred said
+it was for her he came she must perhaps take upon herself such a duty;
+for, as we have seen, Mildred knew everything, and she must therefore be
+right She knew about the statues in the Museum, about the excavations at
+Pompeii, about the antique splendor of Magna Græcia. She always had some
+instructive volume on the table beside her sofa, and she had strength
+enough to hold the book for half an hour at a time. That was about the
+only strength she had now. The Neapolitan winters had been remarkably
+soft, but after the first month or two she had been obliged to give up
+her little walks in the garden. It lay beneath her window like a single
+enormous bouquet; as early as May, that year, the flowers were so dense.
+None of them, however, had a color so intense as the splendid blue of
+the bay, which filled up all the rest of the view. It would have looked
+painted, if you had not been able to see the little movement of the
+waves. Mildred Theory watched them by the hour, and the breathing crest
+of the volcano, on the other side of Naples, and the great sea-vision
+of Capri, on the horizon, changing its tint while her eyes rested there,
+and wondered what would become of her sister after she was gone. Now
+that Percival was married,--he was their only brother, and from one day
+to the other was to come down to Naples to show them his new wife, as
+yet a complete stranger, or revealed only in the few letters she had
+written them during her wedding tour,--now that Percival was to be quite
+taken up, poor Kate’s situation would be much more grave. Mildred felt
+that she should be able to judge better, after she should have seen her
+sister-in-law, how much of a home Kate might expect to find with the
+pair; but even if Agnes should prove--well, more satisfactory than her
+letters, it was a wretched prospect for Kate,--this living as a mere
+appendage to happier people. Maiden aunts were very well, but being a
+maiden aunt was only a last resource, and Kate’s first resources had not
+even been tried.
+
+Meanwhile the latter young lady wondered as well,--wondered in what book
+Mildred had read that Captain Benyon was in love with her. She admired
+him, she thought, but he didn’t seem a man that would fall in love with
+one like that She could see that he was on his guard; he would n’t throw
+himself away. He thought too much of himself, or at any rate he took
+too good care of himself,--in the manner of a man to whom something had
+happened which had given him a lesson. Of course what had happened was
+that his heart was buried somewhere,--in some woman’s grave; he had
+loved some beautiful girl,--much more beautiful, Kate was sure, than
+she, who thought herself small and dark,--and the maiden had died, and
+his capacity to love had died with her. He loved her memory,--that was
+the only thing he would care for now. He was quiet, gentle, clever,
+humorous, and very kind in his manner; but if any one save Mildred had
+said to her that if he came three times a week to Posilippo, it was for
+anything but to pass his time (he had told them he didn’t know another
+soul in Naples), she would have felt that this was simply the kind of
+thing--usually so idiotic--that people always thought it necessary to
+say. It was very easy for him to come; he had the big ship’s boat, with
+nothing else to do; and what could be more delightful than to be rowed
+across the bay, under a bright awning, by four brown sailors with
+“Louisiana” in blue letters on their immaculate white shirts, and in gilt
+letters on their fluttering hat ribbons? The boat came to the steps of
+the garden of the _pension_, where the orange-trees hung over and made
+vague yellow balls shine back out of the water. Kate Theory knew all
+about that, for Captain Benyon had persuaded her to take a turn in the
+boat, and if they had only had another lady to go with them, he could
+have conveyed her to the ship, and shown her all over it It looked
+beautiful, just a little way off, with the American flag hanging loose
+in the Italian air. They would have another lady when Agnes should
+arrive; then Percival would remain with Mildred while they took this
+excursion. Mildred had stayed alone the day she went in the boat;
+she had insisted on it, and, of course it was really Mildred who had
+persuaded her; though now that Kate came to think of it, Captain Benyon
+had, in his quiet, waiting way--he turned out to be waiting long after
+you thought he had let a thing pass--said a good deal about the pleasure
+it would give him. Of course, everything would give pleasure to a man
+who was so bored. He was keeping the “Louisiana” at Naples, week after
+week, simply because these were the commodore’s orders. There was no
+work to be done there, and his time was on his hands; but of course the
+commodore, who had gone to Constantinople with the two other ships, had
+to be obeyed to the letter, however mysterious his motives. It made no
+difference that he was a fantastic, grumbling, arbitrary old commodore;
+only a good while afterwards it occurred to Kate Theory that, for a
+reserved, correct man, Captain Benyon had given her a considerable
+proof of confidence, in speaking to her in these terms of his superior
+officer. If he looked at all hot when he arrived at the _pension_,
+she offered him a glass of cold “orangeade.” Mildred thought this an
+unpleasant drink,--she called it messy; but Kate adored it, and Captain
+Benyon always accepted it.
+
+The day I speak of, to change the subject, she called her sister’s
+attention to the extraordinary sharpness of a zigzagging cloud-shadow,
+on the tinted slope of Vesuvius; but Mildred only remarked in answer
+that she wished her sister would many the captain. It was in this
+familiar way that constant meditation led Miss Theory to speak of him;
+it shows how constantly she thought of him, for, in general, no one was
+more ceremonious than she, and the failure of her health had not caused
+her to relax any form that it was possible to keep up. There was a kind
+of slim erectness, even in the way she lay on her sofa; and she always
+received the doctor as if he were calling for the first time.
+
+“I had better wait till he asks me,” Kate Theory said. “Dear Milly, if
+I were to do some of the things you wish me to do, I should shock you
+very much.”
+
+“I wish he would marry you, then. You know there is very little time, if
+I wish to see it.”
+
+“You will never see it, Mildred. I don’t see why you should take so for
+granted that I would accept him.”
+
+“You will never meet a man who has so few disagreeable qualities. He is
+probably not enormously rich. I don’t know what is the pay of a captain
+in the navy--”
+
+“It’s a relief to find there is something you don’t know,” Kate Theory
+broke in.
+
+“But when I am gone,” her sister went on calmly, “when I am gone there
+will be plenty for both of you.”
+
+The younger sister, at this, was silent for a moment; then she
+exclaimed, “Mildred, you may be out of health, but I don’t see why you
+should be dreadful!”
+
+“You know that since we have been leading this life we have seen no
+one we liked better,” said Milly. When she spoke of the life they were
+leading--there was always a soft resignation of regret and contempt in
+the allusion--she meant the southern winters, the foreign climates,
+the vain experiments, the lonely waitings, the wasted hours, the
+interminable rains, the bad food, the pottering, humbugging doctors,
+the damp _pensions_, the chance encounters, the fitful apparitions, of
+fellow-travellers.
+
+“Why should n’t you speak for yourself alone? I am glad _you_ like him,
+Mildred.”
+
+“If you don’t like him, why do you give him orangeade?”
+
+At this inquiry Kate began to laugh, and her sister continued,--
+
+“Of course you are glad I like him, my dear. If I did n’t like him, and
+you did, it would n’t be satisfactory at all. I can imagine nothing more
+miserable; I should n’t die in any sort of comfort.”
+
+Kate Theory usually checked this sort of allusion--she was always too
+late--with a kiss; but on this occasion she added that it was a long
+time since Mildred had tormented her so much as she had done to-day.
+“You will make me hate him,” she added.
+
+“Well, that proves you don’t already,” Milly rejoined; and it happened
+that almost at this moment they saw, in the golden afternoon, Captain
+Benyon’s boat approaching the steps at the end of the garden. He came
+that day, and he came two days later, and he came yet once again after
+an interval equally brief, before Percival Theory arrived, with Mrs.
+Percival, from Borne. He seemed anxious to crowd into these few days, as
+he would have said, a good deal of intercourse with the two remarkably
+nice girls--or nice women, he hardly knew which to call them--whom in
+the course of a long, idle, rather tedious detention at Naples, he had
+discovered in the lovely suburb of Posilippo. It was the American consul
+who had put him into relation with them; the sisters had had to sign, in
+the consul’s presence, some law-papers, transmitted to them by the man
+of business who looked after their little property in America, and the
+kindly functionary, taking advantage of the pretext (Captain Benyon
+happened to come into the consulate as he was starting, indulgently, to
+wait upon the ladies) to bring together “two parties” who, as he said,
+ought to appreciate each other, proposed to his fellow-officer in the
+service of the United States that he should go with him as witness
+of the little ceremony. He might, of course, take his clerk, but the
+captain would do much better; and he represented to Benyon that the Miss
+Theorys (singular name, wa’ n’t it?) suffered--he was sure--from a lack
+of society; also that one of them was very sick, that they were
+real pleasant and extraordinarily refined, and that the sight of a
+compatriot, literally draped, as it were, in the national banner,
+would cheer them up more than most anything, and give them a sense of
+protection. They had talked to the consul about Benyon’s ship, which
+they could see from their windows, in the distance, at its anchorage.
+They were the only American ladies then at Naples,--the only residents,
+at least,--and the captain would n’t be doing the polite thing unless he
+went to pay them his respects. Benyon felt afresh how little it was in
+his line to call upon strange women; he was not in the habit of hunting
+up female acquaintance, or of looking out for the soft emotions which
+the sex only can inspire. He had his reasons for this abstention, and
+he seldom relaxed it; but the consul appealed to him on rather strong
+grounds; and he suffered himself to be persuaded. He was far from
+regretting, during the first weeks at least, an act which was distinctly
+inconsistent with his great rule,--that of never exposing himself to the
+chance of seriously caring for an unmarried woman. He had been obliged
+to make this rule, and had adhered to it with some success. He was
+fond of women, but he was forced to restrict himself to superficial
+sentiments. There was no use tumbling into situations from which the
+only possible issue was a retreat The step he had taken with regard to
+poor Miss Theory and her delightful little sister was an exception on
+which at first he could only congratulate himself. That had been a happy
+idea of the ruminating old consul; it made Captain Benyon forgive
+him his hat, his boots, his shirtfront,--a costume which might be
+considered representative, and the effect of which was to make the
+observer turn with rapture to a half-naked lazzarone. On either side the
+acquaintance had helped the time to pass, and the hours he spent at
+the little _pension_ at Posilippo left a sweet--and by no means
+innutritive--taste behind.
+
+As the weeks went by his exception had grown to look a good deal like
+a rule; but he was able to remind himself that the path of retreat was
+always open to him. Moreover, if he should fall in love with the younger
+girl there would be no great harm, for Kate Theory was in love only with
+her sister, and it would matter very little to her whether he advanced
+or retreated. She was very attractive, or rather very attracting.
+Small, pale, attentive without rigidity, full of pretty curves and quick
+movements, she looked as if the habit of watching and serving had
+taken complete possession of her, and was literally a little sister of
+charity. Her thick black hair was pushed behind her ears, as if to help
+her to listen, and her clear brown eyes had the smile of a person
+too full of tact to cany a dull face to a sickbed. She spoke in an
+encouraging voice, and had soothing and unselfish habits. She was very
+pretty,--producing a cheerful effect of contrasted black and white, and
+dressed herself daintily, so that Mildred might have something agreeable
+to look at Benyon very soon perceived that there was a fund of good
+service in her. Her sister had it all now; but poor Miss Theory was
+fading fast, and then what would become of this precious little force?
+The answer to such a question that seemed most to the point was
+that it was none of his business. He was not sick,--at least not
+physically,--and he was not looking out for a nurse. Such a companion
+might be a luxury, but was not, as yet, a necessity: The welcome of the
+two ladies, at first, had been simple, and he scarcely knew what to call
+it but sweet; a bright, gentle friendliness remained the tone of their
+greeting. They evidently liked him to come,--they liked to see his big
+transatlantic ship hover about those gleaming coasts of exile. The fact
+of Miss Mildred being always stretched on her couch--in his successive
+visits to foreign waters Benyon had not unlearned (as why should he?)
+the pleasant American habit of using the lady’s personal name--made
+their intimacy seem greater, their differences less; it was as if his
+hostesses had taken him into their confidence and he had been--as the
+consul would have said--of the same party. Knocking about the salt parts
+of the globe, with a few feet square on a rolling frigate for his only
+home, the pretty, flower-decked sitting-room of the quiet American
+sisters became, more than anything he had hitherto known, his interior.
+He had dreamed once of having an interior, but the dream had vanished in
+lurid smoke, and no such vision had come to him again. He had a feeling
+that the end of this was drawing nigh; he was sure that the advent of
+the strange brother, whose wife was certain to be disagreeable, would
+make a difference. That is why, as I have said, he came as often as
+possible the last week, after he had learned the day on which Percival
+Theory would arrive. The limits of the exception had been reached.
+
+He had been new to the young ladies at Posilippo, and there was no
+reason why they should say to each other that he was a very different
+man from the ingenuous youth who, ten years before, used to wander
+with Georgina Gressie down vistas of plank fences brushed over with the
+advertisements of quack medicines. It was natural he should be, and we,
+who know him, would have found that he had traversed the whole scale of
+alteration. There was nothing ingenuous in him now; he had the look of
+experience, of having been seasoned and hardened by the years.
+
+His face, his complexion, were the same; still smooth-shaven and slim,
+he always passed, at first, for a man scarcely out of his twenties. But
+his expression was old, and his talk was older still,--the talk of one
+who had seen much of the world (as indeed he had, to-day), and judged
+most things for himself, with a humorous scepticism which, whatever
+concessions it might make, superficially, for the sake of not offending
+(for instance) two remarkably nice American women, of the kind that had
+kept most of their illusions, left you with the conviction that the
+next minute it would go quickly back to its own standpoint There was a
+curious contradiction in him; he struck you as serious, and yet he could
+not be said to take things seriously. This was what made Kate Theory
+feel so sure that he had lost the object of his affections; and she
+said to herself that it must have been under circumstances of peculiar
+sadness, for that was, after all, a frequent accident, and was not
+usually thought, in itself, a sufficient stroke to make a man a cynic.
+This reflection, it may be added, was, on the young lady’s part, just
+the least bit acrimonious. Captain Benyon was not a cynic in any sense
+in which he might have shocked an innocent mind; he kept his cynicism
+to himself, and was a very clever, courteous, attentive gentleman. If he
+was melancholy, you knew it chiefly by his jokes, for they were usually
+at his own expense; and if he was indifferent, it was all the more
+to his credit that he should have exerted himself to entertain his
+countrywomen.
+
+The last time he called before the arrival of the expected brother, he
+found Miss Theory alone, and sitting up, for a wonder, at her window.
+Kate had driven into Naples to give orders at the hotel for the
+reception of the travellers, who required accommodation more spacious
+than the villa at Posilippo (where the two sisters had the best rooms)
+could offer them; and the sick girl had taken advantage of her absence
+and of the pretext afforded by a day of delicious warmth, to transfer
+herself, for the first time in six months, to an arm-chair. She was
+practising, as she said, for the long carriage-journey to the north,
+where, in a quiet corner they knew of, on the Lago Maggiore, her summer
+was to be spent. Eaymond Benyon remarked to her that she had evidently
+turned the corner and was going to get well, and this gave her a chance
+to say various things that were on her mind. She had many things on her
+mind, poor Mildred Theory, so caged and restless, and yet so resigned
+and patient as she was; with a clear, quick spirit, in the most perfect
+health, ever reaching forward, to the end of its tense little chain,
+from her wasted and suffering body; and, in the course of the perfect
+summer afternoon, as she sat there, exhilarated by the success of her
+effort to get up, and by her comfortable opportunity, she took her
+friendly visitor into the confidence of most of her anxieties. She told
+him, very promptly and positively, that she was not going to get well
+at all, that she had probably not more than ten months yet to live, and
+that he would oblige her very much by not forcing her to waste any more
+breath in contradicting him on that point. Of course she could n’t talk
+much; therefore, she wished to say to him only things that he would
+not hear from any one else. Such, for instance, was her present
+secret--Katie’s and hers--the secret of their fearing so much that they
+should n’t like Percival’s wife, who was not from Boston, but from New
+York. Naturally, that by itself would be nothing, but from what they
+had heard of her set--this subject had been explored by their
+correspondents--they were rather nervous, nervous to the point of not
+being in the least reassured by the fact that the young lady would bring
+Percival a fortune. The fortune was a matter of course, for that was
+just what they had heard about Agnes’s circle--that the stamp of money
+was on all their thoughts and doings. They were very rich and very new
+and very splashing, and evidently had very little in common with the two
+Miss Theorys, who, moreover, if the truth must be told (and this was a
+great secret), did not care much for the letters their sister-in-law had
+hitherto addressed them. She had been at a French boarding-school in
+New York, and yet (and this was the greatest secret of all) she wrote
+to them that she had performed a part of the journey through France in
+_diligance!_
+
+Of course, they would see the next day; Miss Mildred was sure she should
+know in a moment whether Agnes would like them. She could never have
+told him all this if her sister had been there, and Captain Benyon must
+promise never to reveal to Kate how she had chattered. Kate thought
+always that they must hide everything, and that even if Agnes should be
+a dreadful disappointment they must never let any one guess it And yet
+Kate was just the one who would suffer, in the coming years, after she
+herself had gone. Their brother had been everything to them, but now
+it would all be different Of course it was not to be expected that he
+should have remained a bachelor for their sake; she only wished he had
+waited till she was dead and Kate was married One of these events,
+it was true, was much less sure than the other; Kate might never
+marry,--much as she wished she would! She was quite morbidly unselfish,
+and did n’t think she had a right to have anything of her own--not even
+a husband. Miss Mildred talked a good while about Kate, and it never
+occurred to her that she might bore Captain Benyon. She did n’t, in
+point of fact; he had none of the trouble of wondering why this poor,
+sick, worried lady was trying to push her sister down his throat Their
+peculiar situation made everything natural, and the tone she took with
+him now seemed only what their pleasant relation for the last three
+months led up to. Moreover, he had an excellent reason for not being
+bored: the fact, namely, that after all, with regard to her sister,
+Miss Mildred appeared to him to keep back more than she uttered. She
+didn’t tell him the great thing,--she had nothing to say as to what that
+charming girl thought of Eaymond Benyon. The effect of their interview,
+indeed, was to make him shrink from knowing, and he felt that the right
+thing for him would be to get back into his boat, which was waiting at
+the garden steps, before Kate Theory should return from Naples. It came
+over him, as he sat there, that he was far too interested in knowing
+what this young lady thought of him. She might think what she pleased;
+it could make no difference to him. The best opinion in the world--if it
+looked out at him from her tender eyes--would not make him a whit more
+free or more happy. Women of that sort were not for him, women whom one
+could not see familiarly without falling in love with them, and whom it
+was no use to fall in love with unless one was ready to marry them. The
+light of the summer afternoon, and of Miss Mildred’s pure spirit, seemed
+suddenly to flood the whole subject. He saw that he was in danger, and
+he had long since made up his mind that from this particular peril
+it was not only necessary but honorable to flee. He took leave of his
+hostess before her sister reappeared, and had the courage even to say to
+her that he would not come back often after that; they would be so much
+occupied by their brother and his wife! As he moved across the glassy
+bay, to the rhythm of the oars, he wished either that the sisters would
+leave Naples or that his confounded commodore would send for him.
+
+When Kate returned from her errand, ten minutes later, Milly told her
+of the captain’s visit, and added that she had never seen anything so
+sudden as the way he left her. “He would n’t wait for you, my dear,
+and he said he thought it more than likely that he should never see us
+again. It is as if he thought you were going to die too!”
+
+“Is his ship called away?” Kate Theory asked.
+
+“He did n’t tell me so; he said we should be so busy with Percival and
+Agnes.”
+
+“He has got tired of us,--that’s all. There’s nothing wonderful in that;
+I knew he would.”
+
+Mildred said nothing for a moment; she was watching her sister, who was
+very attentively arranging some flowers. “Yes, of course, we are very
+dull, and he is like everybody else.”
+
+“I thought you thought he was so wonderful,” said Kate, “and so fond of
+us.”
+
+“So he is; I am surer of that than ever. That’s why he went away so
+abruptly.”
+
+Kate looked at her sister now. “I don’t understand.”
+
+“Neither do I, darling. But you will, one of these days.”
+
+“How if he never comes back?”
+
+“Oh, he will--after a while--when I am gone. Then he will explain; that,
+at least, is clear to me.”
+
+“My poor precious, as if I cared!” Kate Theory exclaimed, smiling as she
+distributed her flowers. She carried them to the window, to place them
+near her sister, and here she paused a moment, her eye caught by an
+object, far out in the bay, with which she was not unfamiliar. Mildred
+noticed its momentary look, and followed its direction.
+
+“It’s the captain’s gig going back to the ship,” Milly said. “It’s so
+still one can almost hear the oars.”
+
+Kate Theory turned away, with a sudden, strange violence, a movement and
+exclamation which, the very next minute, as she became conscious of what
+she had said,--and, still more, of what she felt--smote her own
+heart (as it flushed her face) with surprise, and with the force of a
+revelation: “I wish it would sink him to the bottom of the sea!”
+
+Her sister stared, then caught her by the dress, as she passed from her,
+drawing her back with a weak hand. “Oh, my dearest, my poorest!” And she
+pulled Kate down and down toward her, so that the girl had nothing for
+it but to sink on her knees and bury her face in Mildred’s lap. If that
+ingenious invalid did not know everything now, she knew a great deal.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Mrs. Percival proved very pretty. It is more gracious to begin with this
+declaration, instead of saying that, in the first place, she proved very
+silly. It took a long day to arrive at the end of her silliness, and the
+two ladies at Posilippo, even after a week had passed, suspected that
+they had only skirted its edges. Kate Theory had not spent half an hour
+in her company before she gave a little private sigh of relief; she felt
+that a situation which had promised to be embarrassing was now quite
+clear, was even of a primitive simplicity. She would spend with her
+sister-in-law, in the coming time, one week in the year; that was all
+that was mortally possible. It was a blessing that one could see exactly
+what she was, for in that way the question settled itself. It would have
+been much more tiresome if Agnes had been a little less obvious; then
+she would have had to hesitate and consider and weigh one thing against
+another. She was pretty and silly, as distinctly as an orange is yellow
+and round; and Kate Theory would as soon have thought of looking to her
+to give interest to the future as she would have thought of looking to
+an orange to impart solidity to the prospect of dinner. Mrs. Percival
+travelled in the hope of meeting her American acquaintance, or of making
+acquaintance with such Americans as she did meet, and for the purpose
+of buying mementos for her relations. She was perpetually adding to her
+store of articles in tortoise-shell, in mother-of-pearl, in olive-wood,
+in ivory, in filigree, in tartan lacquer, in mosaic; and she had a
+collection of Roman scarfs and Venetian beads, which she looked over
+exhaustively every night before she went to bed. Her conversation
+bore mainly upon the manner in which she intended to dispose of these
+accumulations. She was constantly changing about, among each other, the
+persons to whom they were respectively to be offered. At Borne one of
+the first things she said to her husband after entering the Coliseum had
+been: “I guess I will give the ivory work-box to Bessie and the Roman
+pearls to Aunt Harriet!” She was always hanging over the travellers’
+book at the hotel; she had it brought up to her, with a cup of
+chocolate, as soon as she arrived. She searched its pages for the
+magical name of New York, and she indulged in infinite conjecture as to
+who the people were--the name was sometimes only a partial cue--who had
+inscribed it there. What she most missed in Europe, and what she most
+enjoyed, were the New Yorkers; when she met them she talked about the
+people in their native city who had “moved” and the streets they had
+moved to. “Oh, yes, the Drapers are going up town, to Twenty-fourth
+Street, and the Vanderdeckens are going to be in Twenty-third Street,
+right back of them. My uncle, Henry Piatt, thinks of building round
+there.” Mrs. Percival Theory was capable of repeating statements like
+these thirty times over,--of lingering on them for hours. She talked
+largely of herself, of her uncles and aunts, of her clothes--past,
+present, and future. These articles, in especial, filled her horizon;
+she considered them with a complacency which might have led you to
+suppose that she had invented the custom of draping the human form. Her
+main point of contact with Naples was the purchase of coral; and all the
+while she was there the word “set”--she used it as if every one would
+understand--fell with its little, flat, common sound upon the ears of
+her sisters-in-law, who had no sets of anything. She cared little for
+pictures and mountains; Alps and Apennines were not productive of
+New Yorkers, and it was difficult to take an interest in Madonnas who
+flourished at periods when, apparently, there were no fashions, or, at
+any rate, no trimmings.
+
+I speak here not only of the impression she made upon her husband’s
+anxious sisters, but of the judgment passed on her (he went so far
+as that, though it was not obvious how it mattered to him) by Raymond
+Benyon. And this brings me at a jump (I confess it’s a very small one)
+to the fact that he did, after all, go back to Posilippo. He stayed away
+for nine days, and at the end of this time Percival Theory called upon
+him, to thank him for the civility he had shown his kinswomen. He went
+to this gentleman’s hotel, to return his visit, and there he found Miss
+Kate, in her brother’s sitting-room. She had come in by appointment from
+the villa, and was going with the others to seek the royal palace, which
+she had not yet had an opportunity to inspect It was proposed (not by
+Kate), and presently arranged, that Captain Benyon should go with
+them, and he accordingly walked over marble floors for half an hour,
+exchanging conscious commonplaces with the woman he loved. For
+this truth had rounded itself during those nine days of absence; he
+discovered that there was nothing particularly sweet in his life when
+once Kate Theory had been excluded from it He had stayed away to keep
+himself from falling in love with her; but this expedient was in itself
+illuminating, for he perceived that, according to the vulgar adage, he
+was locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen. As he
+paced the deck of his ship and looked toward Posilippo, his tenderness
+crystallized; the thick, smoky flame of a sentiment that knew itself
+forbidden and was angry at the knowledge, now danced upon the fuel of
+his good resolutions. The latter, it must be said, resisted, declined
+to be consumed. He determined that he would see Kate Theory again, for
+a time, just sufficient to bid her good-by, and to add a little
+explanation. He thought of his explanation very lovingly, but it may
+not strike the reader as a happy inspiration. To part from her dryly,
+abruptly, without an allusion to what he might have said if everything
+had been different,--that would be wisdom, of course, that would be
+virtue, that would be the line of a practical man, of a man who kept
+himself well in hand. But it would be virtue terribly unrewarded,--it
+would be virtue too austere for a person who sometimes flattered himself
+that he had taught himself stoicism. The minor luxury tempted him
+irresistibly, since the larger--that of happy love--was denied him; the
+luxury of letting the girl know that it would not be an accident--oh,
+not at all--that they should never meet again. She might easily think it
+was, and thinking it was would doubtless do her no harm. But this would
+n’t give him his pleasure,--the Platonic satisfaction of expressing to
+her at the same time his belief that they might have made each other
+happy, and the necessity of his renunciation. That, probably, wouldn’t
+hurt her either, for she had given him no proof whatever that she cared
+for him. The nearest approach to it was the way she walked beside him
+now, sweet and silent, without the least reference to his not having
+been back to the villa. The place was cool and dusky, the blinds were
+drawn, to keep out the light and noise, and the little party wandered
+through the high saloons, where precious marbles and the gleam of
+gilding and satin made reflections in the rich dimness. Here and there
+the cicerone, in slippers, with Neapolitan familiarity, threw open a
+shutter to show off a picture on a tapestry. He strolled in front with
+Percival Theory and his wife, while this lady, drooping silently from
+her husband’s arm as they passed, felt the stuff of the curtains and
+the sofas. When he caught her in these experiments, the cicerone, in
+expressive deprecation, clasped his hands and lifted his eyebrows;
+whereupon Mrs. Theory exclaimed to her husband, “Oh, bother his old
+king!” It was not striking to Captain Benyon why Percival Theory had
+married the niece of Mr. Henry Piatt. He was less interesting than his
+sisters,--a smooth, cool, correct young man, who frequently took out
+a pencil and did a little arithmetic on the back of a letter. He
+sometimes, in spite of his correctness, chewed a toothpick, and he
+missed the American papers, which he used to ask for in the most
+unlikely places. He was a Bostonian converted to New York; a very
+special type.
+
+“Is it settled when you leave Naples?” Benyon asked of Kate Theory.
+
+“I think so; on the twenty-fourth. My brother has been very kind; he
+has lent us his carriage, which is a large one, so that Mildred can lie
+down. He and Agnes will take another; but, of course, we shall travel
+together.”
+
+“I wish to Heaven I were going with you?” Captain Benyon said. He had
+given her the opportunity to respond, but she did not take it; she
+merely remarked, with a vague laugh, that of course he couldn’t take his
+ship over the Apennines. “Yes, there is always my ship,” he went on. “I
+am afraid that in future it will carry me far away from you.”
+
+They were alone in one of the royal apartments; their companions had
+passed, in advance of them, into the adjoining room. Benyon and his
+fellow-visitor had paused beneath one of the immense chandeliers of
+glass, which in the clear, colored gloom (through it one felt the strong
+outer light of Italy beating in) suspended its twinkling drops from the
+decorated vault. They looked round them confusedly, made shy for the
+moment by Benyon’s having struck a note more serious than any that had
+hitherto souuded between them, looked at the sparse furniture, draped
+in white overalls, at the scagiiola floor, in which the great cluster of
+crystal pendants seemed to shine again.
+
+“You are master of your ship. Can’t you sail it as you like?” Kate
+Theory asked, with a smile.
+
+“I am not master of anything. There is not a man in the world less free.
+I am a slave. I am a victim.”
+
+She looked at him with kind eyes; something in his voice suddenly made
+her put away all thought of the defensive airs that a girl, in certain
+situations, is expected to assume. She perceived that he wanted to make
+her understand something, and now her only wish was to help him to say
+it. “You are not happy,” she murmured, simply, her voice dying away in a
+kind of wonderment at this reality.
+
+The gentle touch of the words--it was as if her hand had stroked his
+cheek--seemed to him the sweetest thing he had ever known. “No, I am not
+happy, because I am not free. If I were--if I were, I would give up my
+ship. I would give up everything, to follow you. I can’t explain; that
+is part of the hardness of it. I only want you to know it,--that if
+certain things were different, if everything was different, I might tell
+you that I believe I should have a right to speak to you. Perhaps some
+day it will change; but probably then it will be too late. Meanwhile, I
+have no right of any kind. I don’t want to trouble you, and I don’t ask
+of you--anything! It is only to have spoken just once. I don’t make
+you understand, of course. I am afraid I seem to you rather a
+brute,--perhaps even a humbug. Don’t think of it now,--don’t try to
+understand. But some day, in the future, remember what I have said to
+you, and how we stood here, in this strange old place, alone! Perhaps it
+will give you a little pleasure.”
+
+Kate Theory began by listening to him with visible eagerness; but in a
+moment she turned away her eyes. “I am very sorry for you,” she said,
+gravely.
+
+“Then you do understand enough?”
+
+“I shall think of what you have said, in the future.”
+
+Benyon’s lips formed the beginning of a word of tenderness, which he
+instantly suppressed; and in a different tone, with a bitter smile and a
+sad shake of the head, raising his arms a moment and letting them fall,
+he said: “It won’t hurt any one, your remembering this!”
+
+“I don’t know whom you mean.” And the girl, abruptly, began to walk to
+the end of the room. He made no attempt to tell her whom he meant, and
+they proceeded together in silence till they overtook their companions.
+
+There were several pictures in the neighboring room, and Percival Theory
+and his wife had stopped to look at one of them, of which the cicerone
+announced the title and the authorship as Benyon came up. It was a
+modern portrait of a Bourbon princess, a woman young, fair, handsome,
+covered with jewels. Mrs. Percival appeared to be more struck with it
+than with anything the palace had yet offered to her sight, while her
+sister-in-law walked to the window, which the custodian had opened, to
+look out into the garden. Benyon noticed this; he was conscious that
+he had given the girl something to reflect upon, and his ears burned a
+little as he stood beside Mrs. Percival and looked up, mechanically, at
+the royal lady. He already repented a little of what he had said, for,
+after all, what was the use? And he hoped the others wouldn’t observe
+that he had been making love.
+
+“Gracious, Percival! Do you see who she looks like?” Mrs. Theory said to
+her husband.
+
+“She looks like a woman who has run up a big bill at Tiffany’s,” this
+gentleman answered.
+
+“She looks like my sister-in-law; the eyes, the mouth, the way the
+hair’s done,--the whole thing.”
+
+“Which do you mean? You have got about a dozen.”
+
+“Why, Georgina, of course,--Georgina Roy. She’s awfully like.”
+
+“Do you call _her_ your sister-in-law?” Percival Theory asked. “You must
+want very much to claim her.”
+
+“Well, she’s handsome enough. You have got to invent some new name,
+then. Captain Benyon, what do you call your brother-in-law’s second
+wife?” Mrs. Percival continued, turning to her neighbor, who still stood
+staring at the portrait. At first he had looked without seeing; then
+sight, and hearing as well, became quick. They were suddenly peopled
+with thrilling recognitions. The Bourbon princess--the eyes, the mouth,
+the way the hair was done; these things took on an identity, and the
+gaze of the painted face seemed to fasten itself to his own. But who in
+the world was Georgina Roy, and what was this talk about sisters-in-law?
+He turned to the little lady at his side a countenance unexpectedly
+puzzled by the problem she had airily presented to him.
+
+“Your brother-in-law’s second wife? That’s rather complicated.”
+
+“Well, of course, he need n’t have married again?” said Mrs. Percival,
+with a small sigh.
+
+“Whom did he marry?” asked Benyon, staring.
+
+Percival Theory had turned away. “Oh, if you are going into her
+relationships!” he murmured, and joined his sister at the brilliant
+window, through which, from the distance, the many-voiced uproar of
+Naples came in.
+
+“He married first my sister Dora, and she died five years ago. Then he
+married _her_,” and Mrs. Percival nodded at the princess.
+
+Benyon’s eyes went back to the portrait; he could see what she meant--it
+stared out at him. “Her? Georgina?”
+
+“Georgina Gressie. Gracious, do you know her?”
+
+It was very distinct--that answer of Mrs. Percival’s, and the question
+that followed it as well. But he had the resource of the picture; he
+could look at it, seem to take it very seriously, though it danced up
+and down before him. He felt that he was turning red, then he felt that
+he was turning pale. “The brazen impudence!” That was the way he
+could speak to himself now of the woman he had once loved, and whom he
+afterwards hated, till this had died out, too. Then the wonder of it was
+lost in the quickly growing sense that it would make a difference
+for him,--a great difference. Exactly what, he didn’t see yet; only a
+difference that swelled and swelled as he thought of it, and caught up,
+in its expansion, the girl who stood behind him so quietly, looking into
+the Italian garden.
+
+The custodian drew Mrs. Percival away to show her another princess,
+before Benyon answered her last inquiry. This gave him time to recover
+from his first impulse, which had been to answer it with a negative;
+he saw in a moment that an admission of his acquaintance with Mrs. Roy
+(Mrs. Roy!--it was prodigious!) was necessarily helping him to learn
+more. Besides, it needn’t be compromising. Very likely Mrs. Percival
+would hear one day that he had once wanted to marry her. So, when he
+joined his companions a minute later he remarked that he had known Miss
+Gressie years before, and had even admired her considerably, but had
+lost sight of her entirely in later days. She had been a great beauty,
+and it was a wonder that she had not married earlier. Five years ago,
+was it? No, it was only two. He had been going to say that in so long a
+time it would have been singular he should not have heard of it. He had
+been away from New York for ages; but one always heard of marriages and
+deaths. This was a proof, though two years was rather long. He led Mrs.
+Percival insidiously into a further room, in advance of the others,
+to whom the cicerone returned. She was delighted to talk about her
+“connections,” and she supplied him with every detail He could trust
+himself now; his self-possession was complete, or, so far as it was
+wanting, the fault was that of a sudden gayety which he could not, on
+the spot, have accounted for. Of course it was not very flattering to
+them--Mrs. Percivals own people--that poor Dora’s husband should have
+consoled himself; but men always did it (talk of widows!) and he
+had chosen a girl who was--well, very fine-looking, and the sort of
+successor to Dora that they needn’t be ashamed of. She had been awfully
+admired, and no one had understood why she had waited so long to marry.
+She had had some affair as a girl,--an engagement to an officer in the
+army,--and the man had jilted her, or they had quarrelled, or something
+or other. She was almost an old maid,--well, she was thirty, or very
+nearly,--but she had done something good now. She was handsomer than
+ever, and tremendously stylish. William Roy had one of the biggest
+incomes in the city, and he was quite affectionate. He had been
+intensely fond of Dora--he often spoke of her still, at least to her
+own relations; and her portrait, the last time Mrs. Percival was in his
+house (it was at a party, after his marriage to Miss Gressie), was still
+in the front parlor.. Perhaps by this time he had had it moved to the
+back; but she was sure he would keep it somewhere, anyway. Poor Dora
+had had no children; but Georgina was making that all right,--she had
+a beautiful boy. Mrs. Percival had what she would have called quite a
+pleasant chat with Captain Benyon about Mrs. Roy. Perhaps _he_ was the
+officer--she never thought of that? He was sure he had never jilted her?
+And he had never quarrelled with a lady? Well, he must be different from
+most men.
+
+He certainly had the air of being so, before he parted that afternoon
+with Kate Theory. This young lady, at least, was free to think him
+wanting in that consistency which is supposed to be a distinctively
+masculine virtue. An hour before, he had taken an eternal farewell
+of her, and now he was alluding to future meetings, to future visits,
+proposing that, with her sister-in-law, she should appoint an early day
+for coming to see the “Louisiana.” She had supposed she understood him,
+but it would appear now that she had not understood him at all. His
+manner had changed, too. More and more off his guard, Raymond Benyon
+was not aware how much more hopeful an expression it gave him, his
+irresistible sense that somehow or other this extraordinary proceeding
+of his wife’s would set him free. Kate Theory felt rather weary and
+mystified,--all the more for knowing that henceforth Captain Benyon’s
+variations would be the most important thing in life for her.
+
+This officer, on his ship in the bay, lingered very late on deck that
+night,--lingered there, indeed, under the warm southern sky, in which
+the stars glittered with a hot, red light, until the early dawn began to
+show. He smoked cigar after cigar, he walked up and down by the hour, he
+was agitated by a thousand reflections, he repeated to himself that
+it made a difference,--an immense difference; but the pink light had
+deepened in the east before he had discovered in what the diversity
+consisted. By that time he saw it clearly,--it consisted in Georgina’s
+being in his power now, in place of his being in hers. He laughed as he
+sat there alone in the darkness at the thought of what she had done. It
+had occurred to him more than once that she would do it,--he believed
+her capable of anything; but the accomplished fact had a freshness of
+comicality. He thought of Mr. William Roy, of his big income, of his
+being “quite affectionate,” of his blooming son and heir, of his having
+found such a worthy successor to poor Mrs. Dora. He wondered whether
+Georgina had happened to mention to him that she had a husband living,
+but was strongly of the belief that she had not. Why should she, after
+all? She had neglected to mention it to so many others. He had thought
+he knew her, in so many years,--that he had nothing more to learn about
+her; but this ripe stroke revived his sense of her audacity. Of course
+it was what she had been waiting for, and if she had not done it sooner
+it was because she had hoped he would be lost at sea in one of his long
+cruises and relieve her of the necessity of a crime. How she must hate
+him to-day for not having been lost, for being alive, for continuing to
+put her in the wrong! Much as she hated him, however, his own loathing
+was at least a match for hers. She had done him the foulest of
+wrongs,--she had ravaged his life. That he should ever detest in this
+degree a woman whom he had once loved as he loved her, he would not have
+thought possible in his innocent younger years. But he would not have
+thought it possible then that a woman should be such a cold-blooded
+devil as she had been. His love had perished in his rage,--his blinding,
+impotent rage at finding that he had been duped, and measuring his
+impotence. When he learned, years before, from Mrs. Portico, what she
+had done with her baby, of whose entrance into life she herself had
+given him no intimation, he felt that he was face to face with a full
+revelation of her nature. Before that it had puzzled him; it had amazed
+him; his relations with her were bewildering, stupefying. But when,
+after obtaining, with difficulty and delay, a leave of absence from
+Government, and betaking himself to Italy to look for the child and
+assume possession of it, he had encountered absolute failure and
+defeat,--then the case presented itself to him more simply. He perceived
+that he had mated himself with a creature who just happened to be
+a monster, a human exception altogether. That was what he could n’t
+pardon--her conduct about the child; never, never, never! To him she
+might have done what she chose,--dropped him, pushed him out into
+eternal cold, with his hands fast tied,--and he would have accepted
+it, excused her almost, admitted that it had been his business to mind
+better what he was about. But she had tortured him through the poor
+little irrecoverable son whom he had never seen, through the heart
+and the vitals that she had not herself, and that he had to have, poor
+wretch, for both of them!
+
+All his efforts for years had been to forget these horrible months, and
+he had cut himself off from them so that they seemed at times to belong
+to the life of another person. But to-night he lived them over again;
+he retraced the different gradations of darkness through which he had
+passed, from the moment, so soon after his extraordinary marriage, when
+it came over him that she already repented, and meant, if possible, to
+elude all her obligations. This was the moment when he saw why she had
+reserved herself--in the strange vow she extracted from him--an
+open door for retreat; the moment, too, when her having had such an
+inspiration (in the midst of her momentary good faith, if good faith it
+had ever been) struck him as a proof of her essential depravity. What he
+had tried to forget came back to him: the child that was not his child
+produced for him when he fell upon that squalid nest of peasants in
+the Genoese country; and then the confessions, retractations,
+contradictions, lies, terrors, threats, and general bottomless, baffling
+baseness of every one in the place. The child was gone; that had been
+the only definite thing. The woman who had taken it to nurse had a
+dozen different stories,--her husband had as many,--and every one in the
+village had a hundred more. Georgina had been sending money,--she had
+managed, apparently, to send a good deal,--and the whole country seemed
+to have been living on it and making merry. At one moment the baby
+had died and received a most expensive burial; at another he had been
+intrusted (for more healthy air, Santissima Madonna!) to the woman’s
+cousin in another village. According to a version, which for a day or
+two Benyon had inclined to think the least false, he had been taken by
+the cousin (for his beauty’s sake) to Genoa (when she went for the first
+time in her life to the town to see her daughter in service there), and
+had been confided for a few hours to a third woman, who was to keep him
+while the cousin walked about the streets, but who, having no child of
+her own, took such a fancy to him that she refused to give him up, and
+a few days later left the place (she was a Pisana) never to be heard
+of more. The cousin had forgotten her name,--it had happened six months
+before. Benyon spent a year looking up and down Italy for his child,
+and inspecting hundreds of swaddled infants, impenetrable candidates for
+recognition. Of course he could only get further and further from real
+knowledge, and his search was arrested by the conviction that it was
+making him mad. He set his teeth and made up his mind (or tried to) that
+the baby had died in the hands of its nurse. This was, after all, much
+the likeliest supposition, and the woman had maintained it, in the hope
+of being rewarded for her candor, quite as often as she had asseverated
+that it was still, somewhere, alive, in the hope of being remunerated
+for her good news. It may be imagined with what sentiments toward his
+wife Benyon had emerged from this episode. To-night his memory went
+further back,--back to the beginning and to the days when he had had
+to ask himself, with all the crudity of his first surprise, what in the
+name of wantonness she had wished to do with him. The answer to
+this speculation was so old,--it had dropped so ont of the line of
+recurrence,--that it was now almost new again. Moreover, it was only
+approximate, for, as I have already said, he could comprehend such
+conduct as little at the end as at the beginning. She had found herself
+on a slope which her nature forced her to descend to the bottom. She did
+him the honor of wishing to enjoy his society, and she did herself
+the honor of thinking that their intimacy--however brief--must have a
+certain consecration. She felt that, with him, after his promise (he
+would have made any promise to lead her on), she was secure,--secure
+as she had proved to be, secure as she must think herself now. That
+security had helped her to ask herself, after the first flush of passion
+was over, and her native, her twice-inherited worldliness had bad time
+to open its eyes again, why she should keep faith with a man whose
+deficiencies (as a husband before the world--another affair) had been
+so scientifically exposed to her by her parents. So she had simply
+determined not to keep faith; and her determination, at least, she did
+keep.
+
+By the time Benyon turned in he had satisfied himself, as I say,
+that Georgina was now in his power; and this seemed to him such an
+improvement in his situation that he allowed himself (for the next ten
+days) a license which made Kate Theory almost as happy as it made her
+sister, though she pretended to understand it far less. Mildred sank to
+her rest, or rose to fuller comprehensions, within the year, in the Isle
+of Wight, and Captain Benyon, who had never written so many letters as
+since they left Naples, sailed westward about the same time as the sweet
+survivor. For the “Louisiana” at last was ordered home.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+Certainly, I will see you if you come, and you may appoint any day or
+hour you like. I should have seen you with pleasure any time these last
+years. Why should we not be friends, as we used to be? Perhaps we shall
+be yet. I say “perhaps” only, on purpose,--because your note is rather
+vague about your state of mind. Don’t come with any idea about making me
+nervous or uncomfortable. I am not nervous by nature, thank Heaven,
+and I won’t--I positively won’t (do you hear, dear Captain Benyon?)--be
+uncomfortable. I have been so (it served me right) for years and years;
+but I am very happy now. To remain so is the very definite intention of,
+yours ever,
+
+Georgina Roy.
+
+
+This was the answer Benyon received to a short letter that he despatched
+to Mrs. Roy after his return to America. It was not till he had been
+there some weeks that he wrote to her. He had been occupied in various
+ways: he had had to look after his ship; he had had to report at
+Washington; he had spent a fortnight with his mother at Portsmouth, N.
+H.; and he had paid a visit to Kate Theory in Boston. She herself was
+paying visits, she was staying with various relatives and friends. She
+had more color--it was very delicately rosy--than she had had of old, in
+spite of her black dress; and the effect of looking at him seemed to him
+to make her eyes grow still prettier. Though sisterless now, she was not
+without duties, and Benyon could easily see that life would press hard
+on her unless some one should interfere. Every one regarded her as
+just the person to do certain things. Every one thought she could do
+everything, because she had nothing else to do. She used to read to the
+blind, and, more onerously, to the deaf. She looked after other people’s
+children while the parents attended anti-slavery conventions.
+
+She was coming to New York later to spend a week at her brother’s, but
+beyond this she didn’t know what she should do. Benyon felt it to be
+awkward that he should not be able, just now, to tell her; and this
+had much to do with his coming to the point, for he accused himself of
+having rather hung fire. Coming to the point, for Benyon, meant writing
+a note to Mrs. Roy (as he must call her), in which he asked whether she
+would see him if he should present himself. The missive was short; it
+contained, in addition to what I have noted, little more than the remark
+that he had something of importance to say to her. Her reply, which we
+have just read, was prompt. Benyon designated an hour, and the next
+day rang the doorbell of her big modern house, whose polished windows
+seemed to shine defiance at him.
+
+As he stood on the steps, looking up and down the straight vista of the
+Fifth Avenue, he perceived that he was trembling a little, that _he_
+was nervous, if she was not. He was ashamed of his agitation, and he
+addressed himself a very stern reprimand. Afterwards he saw that what
+had made him nervous was not any doubt of the goodness of his cause,
+but his revived sense (as he drew near her) of his wife’s hardness,--her
+capacity for insolence. He might only break himself against that, and
+the prospect made him feel helpless. She kept him waiting for a long
+time after he had been introduced; and as he walked up and down her
+drawing-room, an immense, florid, expensive apartment, covered with
+blue satin, gilding, mirrors and bad frescos, it came over him as a
+certainty that her delay was calculated. She wished to annoy him, to
+weary him; she was as ungenerous as she was unscrupulous. It never
+occurred to him that in spite of the bold words of her note, she, too,
+might be in a tremor, and if any one in their secret bad suggested that
+she was afraid to meet him, he would have laughed at this idea. This
+was of bad omen for the success of his errand; for it showed that he
+recognized the ground of her presumption,--his having the superstition
+of old promises. By the time she appeared, he was flushed,--very angry.
+She closed the door behind her, and stood there looking at him, with the
+width of the room between them.
+
+The first emotion her presence excited was a quick sense of the strange
+fact that, after all these years of loneliness, such a magnificent
+person should be his wife. For she was magnificent, in the maturity of
+her beauty, her head erect, her complexion splendid, her auburn tresses
+undimmed, a certain plenitude in her very glance. He saw in a moment
+that she wished to seem to him beautiful, she had endeavored to dress
+herself to the best effect. Perhaps, after all, it was only for this she
+had delayed; she wished to give herself every possible touch. For some
+moments they said nothing; they had not stood face to face for nearly
+ten years, and they met now as adversaries. No two persons could
+possibly be more interested in taking each other’s measure. It scarcely
+belonged to Georgina, however, to have too much the air of timidity;
+and after a moment, satisfied, apparently, that she was not to receive a
+broadside, she advanced, slowly rubbing her jewelled hands and smiling.
+He wondered why she should smile, what thought was in her mind. His
+impressions followed each other with extraordinary quickness of pulse,
+and now he saw, in addition to what he had already perceived, that she
+was waiting to take her cue,--she had determined on no definite line.
+There was nothing definite about her but her courage; the rest would
+depend upon him. As for her courage, it seemed to glow in the beauty
+which grew greater as she came nearer, with her eyes on his and her
+fixed smile; to be expressed in the very perfume that accompanied her
+steps. By this time he had got still a further impression, and it was
+the strangest of all. She was ready for anything, she was capable of
+anything, she wished to surprise him with her beauty, to remind him that
+it belonged, after all, at the bottom of everything, to him. She was
+ready to bribe him, if bribing should be necessary. She had carried on
+an intrigue before she was twenty; it would be more, rather than less,
+easy for her, now that she was thirty. All this and more was in her
+cold, living eyes, as in the prolonged silence they engaged themselves
+with his; but I must not dwell upon it, for reasons extraneous to the
+remarkable fact She was a truly amazing creature.
+
+“Raymond!” she said, in a low voice, a voice which might represent
+either a vague greeting or an appeal.
+
+He took no heed of the exclamation, but asked her why she had
+deliberately kept him waiting,--as if she had not made a fool enough of
+him already. She could n’t suppose it was for his pleasure he had come
+into the house.
+
+She hesitated a moment,--still with her smile. “I must tell you I have
+a son,--the dearest little boy. His nurse happened to be engaged for the
+moment, and I had to watch him. I am more devoted to him than you might
+suppose.”
+
+He fell back from her a few steps. “I wonder if you are insane,” he
+murmured.
+
+“To allude to my child? Why do you ask me such questions then? I tell
+you the simple truth. I take every care of this one. I am older and
+wiser. The other one was a complete mistake; he had no right to exist.”
+
+“Why didn’t you kill him then with your own hands, instead of that
+torture?”
+
+“Why did n’t I kill myself? That question would be more to the point You
+are looking wonderfully well,” she broke off in another tone; “had n’t
+we better sit down?”
+
+“I did n’t come here for the advantage of conversation,” Benyon
+answered. And he was going on, but she interrupted him--
+
+“You came to say something dreadful, very likely; though I hoped you
+would see it was better not But just tell me this before you begin. Are
+you successful, are you happy? It has been so provoking, not knowing
+more about you.”
+
+There was something in the manner in which this was said that caused him
+to break into a loud laugh; whereupon she added,--
+
+“Your laugh is just what it used to be. How it comes back to me! You
+_have_ improved in appearance,” she went on.
+
+She had seated herself, though he remained standing; and she leaned back
+in a low, deep chair, looking up at him, with her arms folded. He stood
+near her and over her, as it were, dropping his baffled eyes on her,
+with his hand resting on the corner of the chimney-piece. “Has it never
+occurred to you that I may deem myself absolved from the promise made
+you before I married you?”
+
+“Very often, of course. But I have instantly dismissed the idea. How can
+you be ‘absolved’? One promises, or one doesn’t. I attach no meaning
+to that, and neither do you.” And she glanced down to the front of her
+dress.
+
+Benyon listened, but he went on as if he had not heard her. “What I came
+to say to you is this: that I should like your consent to my bringing a
+suit for divorce against you.”
+
+“A suit for divorce? I never thought of that.”
+
+“So that I may marry another woman. I can easily obtain a divorce on the
+ground of your desertion.”
+
+She stared a moment, then her smile solidified, as it were, and she
+looked grave; but he could see that her gravity, with her lifted
+eyebrows, was partly assumed. “Ah, you want to marry another woman!” she
+exclaimed, slowly, thoughtfully. He said nothing, and she went on: “Why
+don’t you do as I have done?”
+
+“Because I don’t want my children to be--”
+
+Before he could say the words she sprang up, checking him with a cry.
+“Don’t say it; it is n’t necessary! Of course I know what you mean; but
+they won’t be if no one knows it.”
+
+“I should object to knowing it myself; it’s enough for me to know it of
+yours.”
+
+“Of course I have been prepared for your saying that”
+
+“I should hope so!” Benyon exclaimed. “You may be a bigamist if it
+suits you, but to me the idea is not attractive. I wish to marry--” and,
+hesitating a moment, with his slight stammer, he repeated, “I wish to
+marry--”
+
+“Marry, then, and have done with it!” cried Mrs. Roy.
+
+He could already see that he should be able to extract no consent from
+her; he felt rather sick. “It’s extraordinary to me that you should n’t
+be more afraid of being found out,” he said after a moment’s reflection.
+“There are two or three possible accidents.”
+
+“How do you know how much afraid I am? I have thought of every accident,
+in dreadful nights. How do you know what my life is, or what it has been
+all these miserable years?”
+
+“You look wasted and worn, certainly.”
+
+“Ah, don’t compliment me!” Georgina exclaimed. “If I had never known
+you--if I had not been through all this--I believe I should have been
+handsome. When did you hear of my marriage? Where were you at the time?”
+
+“At Naples, more than six months ago, by a mere chance.”
+
+“How strange that it should have taken you so long! Is the lady a
+Neapolitan? They don’t mind what they do over there.”
+
+“I have no information to give you beyond what I just said,” Benyon
+rejoined. “My life does n’t in the least regard you.”
+
+“Ah, but it does from the moment I refuse to let you divorce me.”
+
+“You refuse?” Benyon said softly.
+
+“Don’t look at me that way! You have n’t advanced so rapidly as I used
+to think you would; you haven’t distinguished yourself so much,” she
+went on, irrelevantly.
+
+“I shall be promoted commodore one of these days,” Benyon answered.
+“You don’t know much about it, for my advancement has already been very
+exceptionally rapid.” He blushed as soon as the words were out of his
+mouth. She gave a light laugh on seeing it; but he took up his hat and
+added: “Think over a day or two what I have proposed to you. Think of
+the temper in which I ask it.”
+
+“The temper?” she stared. “Pray, what have you to do with temper?” And
+as he made no reply, smoothing his hat with his glove, she went on:
+“Years ago, as much as you please I you had a good right, I don’t deny,
+and you raved, in your letters, to your heart’s content That’s why
+I would n’t see you; I did n’t wish to take it full in the face. But
+that’s all over now, time is a healer, you have cooled off, and by your
+own admission you have consoled yourself. Why do you talk to me about
+temper! What in the world have I done to you, but let you alone?”
+
+“What do you call this business?” Benyon asked, with his eye flashing
+all over the room.
+
+“Ah, excuse me, that doesn’t touch you,--it’s my affair. I leave you
+your liberty, and I can live as I like. If I choose to live in this way,
+it may be queer (I admit it is, awfully), but you have nothing to say
+to it. If I am willing to take the risk, you may be. If I am willing to
+play such an infernal trick upon a confiding gentleman (I will put it as
+strongly as you possibly could), I don’t see what you have to say to it
+except that you are tremendously glad such a woman as that is n’t known
+to be your wife!” She had been cool and deliberate up to this time; but
+with these words her latent agitation broke out “Do you think I have
+been happy? Do you think I have enjoyed existence? Do you see me
+freezing up into a stark old maid?”
+
+“I wonder you stood out so long!” said Benyon.
+
+“I wonder I did. They were bad years.”
+
+“I have no doubt they were!”
+
+“You could do as you pleased,” Georgina went on. “You roamed about the
+world; you formed charming relations. I am delighted to hear it from
+your own lips. Think of my going back to my father’s house--that family
+vault--and living there, year after year, as Miss Gressie! If you
+remember my father and mother--they are round in Twelfth Street, just
+the same--you must admit that I paid for my folly!”
+
+“I have never understood you; I don’t understand you now,” said Benyon.
+
+She looked at him a moment. “I adored you.”
+
+“I could damn you with a word!” he went on.
+
+The moment he had spoken she grasped his arm and held up her other hand,
+as if she were listening to a sound outside the room. She had evidently
+had an inspiration, and she carried it into instant effect She swept
+away to the door, flung it open, and passed into the hall, whence her
+voice came back to Benyon as she addressed a person who was apparently
+her husband. She had heard him enter the house at his habitual hour,
+after his long morning at business; the closing of the door of the
+vestibule had struck her ear. The parlor was on a level with the hall,
+and she greeted him without impediment. She asked him to come in and be
+introduced to Captain Benyon, and he responded with due solemnity. She
+returned in advance of him, her eyes fixed upon Benyon and lighted
+with defiance, her whole face saying to him, vividly: “Here is your
+opportunity; I give it to you with my own hands. Break your promise and
+betray me if you dare! You say you can damn me with a word: speak the
+word and let us see!”
+
+Benyon’s heart beat faster, as he felt that it was indeed a chance; but
+half his emotion came from the spectacle--magnificent in its way--of her
+unparalleled impudence. A sense of all that he had escaped in not
+having had to live with her rolled over him like a wave, while he looked
+strangely at Mr. Roy, to whom this privilege had been vouchsafed. He saw
+in a moment his successor had a constitution that would carry it.
+Mr. Roy suggested squareness and solidity; he was a broadbased,
+comfortable, polished man, with a surface in which the rank tendrils
+of irritation would not easily obtain a foothold. He had a broad,
+blank face, a capacious mouth, and a small, light eye, to which, as
+he entered, he was engaged in adjusting a double gold-rimmed glass.
+He approached Benyon with a prudent, civil, punctual air, as if he
+habitually met a good many gentlemen in the course of business, and
+though, naturally, this was not that sort of occasion he was not a man
+to waste time in preliminaries. Benyon had immediately the impression
+of having seen him--or his equivalent--a thousand times before. He was
+middle-aged, fresh-colored, whiskered, prosperous, indefinite. Georgina
+introduced them to each other. She spoke of Benyon as an old friend whom
+she had known long before she had known Mr. Roy, who had been very kind
+to her years ago, when she was a girl.
+
+“He’s in the navy. He has just come back from a long cruise.”
+
+Mr. Hoy shook hands,--Benyon gave him his before he knew it,--said he
+was very happy, smiled, looked at Benyon from head to foot, then at
+Georgina, then round the room, then back at Benyon again,--at Benyon,
+who stood there, without sound or movement, with a dilated eye, and a
+pulse quickened to a degree of which Mr. Roy could have little idea.
+Georgina made some remark about their sitting down, but William Roy
+replied that he had n’t time for that,--if Captain Benyon would excuse
+him. He should have to go straight into the library, and write a note to
+send back to his office, where, as he just remembered, he had neglected
+to give, in leaving the place, an important direction.
+
+“You can wait a moment, surely,” Georgina said. “Captain Benyon wants so
+much to see you.”
+
+“Oh, yes, my dear; I can wait a minute, and I can come back.”
+
+Benyon saw, accordingly, that he was waiting, and that Georgina was
+waiting too. Each was waiting for him to say something, though they were
+waiting for different things. Mr. Roy put his hands behind him,
+balanced himself on his toes, hoped that Captain Benyon had enjoyed
+his cruise,--though he should n’t care much for the navy himself,--and
+evidently wondered at the stolidity of his wife’s visitor. Benyon knew
+he was speaking, for he indulged in two or three more observations,
+after which he stopped. But his meaning was not present to our hero.
+This personage was conscious of only one thing, of his own momentary
+power,--of everything that hung on his lips; all the rest swam before
+him; there was vagueness in his ears and eyes. Mr. Roy stopped, as I
+say, and there was a pause, which seemed to Benyon of tremendous length.
+He knew, while it lasted, that Georgina was as conscious as himself that
+he felt his opportunity, that he held it there in his hand, weighing it
+noiselessly in the palm, and that she braved and scorned, or, rather,
+that she enjoyed, the danger. He asked himself whether he should be able
+to speak if he were to try, and then he knew that he should not, that
+the words would stick in his throat, that he should make sounds that
+would dishonor his cause. There was no real choice or decision, then, on
+Benyon’s part; his silence was after all the same old silence, the fruit
+of other hours and places, the stillness to which Georgina listened,
+while he felt her eager eyes fairly eat into his face, so that his
+cheeks burned with the touch of them. The moments stood before him in
+their turn; each one was distinct. “Ah, well,” said Mr. Roy, “perhaps I
+interrupt,--I ‘ll just dash off my note” Benyon knew that he was rather
+bewildered, that he was making a pretext, that he was leaving the room;
+knew presently that Georgina again stood before him alone.
+
+“You are exactly the man I thought you!” she announced, as joyously as
+if she had won a bet.
+
+“You are the most horrible woman I can imagine. Good God! if I _had_ had
+to live with you!” That is what he said to her in answer.
+
+Even at this she never flushed; she continued to smile in triumph. “He
+adores me--but what’s that to you? Of course you have all the future,”
+ she went on; “but I know you as if I had made you!”
+
+Benyon reflected a moment “If he adores you, you are all right. If
+our divorce is pronounced, you will be free, and then he can marry you
+properly, which he would like ever so much better.”
+
+“It’s too touching to hear you reason about it. Fancy me telling such a
+hideous story--about myself--me--_me_!” And she touched her breasts with
+her white fingers.
+
+Benyon gave her a look that was charged with all the sickness of his
+helpless rage. “You--_you_!” he repeated, as he turned away from her and
+passed through the door which Mr. Roy had left open.
+
+She followed him into the hall, she was close behind him; he moved
+before her as she pressed. “There was one more reason,” she said. “I
+would n’t be forbidden. It was my hideous pride. That’s what prevents me
+now.”
+
+“I don’t care what it is,” Benyon answered, wearily, with his hand on
+the knob of the door.
+
+She laid hers on his shoulder; he stood there an instant feeling it,
+wishing that her loathsome touch gave him the right to strike her to the
+earth,--to strike her so that she should never rise again.
+
+“How clever you are, and intelligent always,--as you used to be; to
+feel so perfectly and know so well, without more scenes, that it’s
+hopeless--my ever consenting! If I have, with you, the shame of having
+made you promise, let me at least have the profit!”
+
+His back had been turned to her, but at this he glanced round. “To hear
+you talk of shame--!”
+
+“You don’t know what I have gone through; but, of course, I don’t ask
+any pity from you. Only I should like to say something kind to you
+before we part I admire you, esteem you: I don’t many people! Who will
+ever tell her, if you don’t? How will she ever know, then? She will be
+as safe as I am. You know what that is,” said Georgina, smiling.
+
+He had opened the door while she spoke, apparently not heeding her,
+thinking only of getting away from her forever. In reality he heard
+every word she said, and felt to his marrow the lowered, suggestive
+tone in which she made him that last recommendation. Outside, on the
+steps--she stood there in the doorway--he gave her his last look. “I
+only hope you will die. I shall pray for that!” And he descended into
+the street and took his way.
+
+It was after this that his real temptation came. Not the temptation to
+return betrayal for betrayal; that passed away even in a few days,
+for he simply knew that he couldn’t break his promise, that it imposed
+itself on him as stubbornly as the color of his eyes or the stammer of
+his lips; it had gone forth into the world to live for itself, and was
+far beyond his reach or his authority. But the temptation to go through
+the form of a marriage with Kate Theory, to let her suppose that he was
+as free as herself, and that their children, if they should have any,
+would, before the law, have a right to exist,--this attractive idea held
+him fast for many weeks, and caused him to pass some haggard nights and
+days. It was perfectly possible she might learn his secret, and that,
+as no one could either suspect it or have an interest in bringing it to
+light, they both might live and die in security and honor. This vision
+fascinated him; it was, I say, a real temptation. He thought of other
+solutions,--of telling her that he was married (without telling her
+to whom), and inducing her to overlook such an accident, and content
+herself with a ceremony in which the world would see no flaw. But after
+all the contortions of his spirit it remained as clear to him as before
+that dishonor was in everything but renunciation. So, at last, he
+renounced. He took two steps which attested ths act to himself. He
+addressed an urgent request to the Secretary of the Navy that he might,
+with as little delay as possible, be despatched on another long voyage;
+and he returned to Boston to tell Kate Theory that they must wait. He
+could explain so little that, say what he would, he was aware that he
+could not make his conduct seem natural, and he saw that the girl
+only trusted him,--that she never understood. She trusted without
+understanding, and she agreed to wait. When the writer of these pages
+last heard of the pair they were waiting still.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgina’s Reasons, by Henry James
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgina's Reasons, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Georgina's Reasons
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21771]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGINA'S REASONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+GEORGINA'S REASONS
+
+By Henry James
+
+1885
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+She was certainly a singular girl, and if he felt at the end that he
+did n't know her nor understand her, it is not surprising that he should
+have felt it at the beginning. But he felt at the beginning what he
+did not feel at the end, that her singularity took the form of a charm
+which--once circumstances had made them so intimate--it was impossible
+to resist or conjure away. He had a strange impression (it amounted
+at times to a positive distress, and shot through the sense of
+pleasure--morally speaking--with the acuteness of a sudden twinge of
+neuralgia) that it would be better for each of them that they should
+break off short and never see each other again. In later years he called
+this feeling a foreboding, and remembered two or three occasions when he
+had been on the point of expressing it to Georgina. Of course, in fact,
+he never expressed it; there were plenty of good reasons for that. Happy
+love is not disposed to assume disagreeable duties, and Raymond Benyon's
+love was happy, in spite of grave presentiments, in spite of the
+singularity of his mistress and the insufferable rudeness of her
+parents. She was a tall, fair girl, with a beautiful cold eye and a
+smile of which the perfect sweetness, proceeding from the lips, was full
+of compensation; she had auburn hair of a hue that could be qualified as
+nothing less than gorgeous, and she seemed to move through life with a
+stately grace, as she would have walked through an old-fashioned minuet.
+Gentlemen connected with the navy have the advantage of seeing many
+types of women; they are able to compare the ladies of New York with
+those of Valparaiso, and those of Halifax with those of the Cape of Good
+Hope. Eaymond Benyon had had these advantages, and being very fond
+of women he had learnt his lesson; he was in a position to appreciate
+Georgina Gressie's fine points. She looked like a duchess,--I don't mean
+that in foreign ports Benyon had associated with duchesses,--and she
+took everything so seriously. That was flattering for the young man,
+who was only a lieutenant, detailed for duty at the Brooklyn navy-yard,
+without a penny in the world but his pay, with a set of plain, numerous,
+seafaring, God-fearing relations in New Hampshire, a considerable
+appearance of talent, a feverish, disguised ambition, and a slight
+impediment in his speech.
+
+He was a spare, tough young man, his dark hair was straight and
+fine, and his face, a trifle pale, was smooth and carefully drawn.
+He stammered a little, blushing when he did so, at long intervals.
+I scarcely know how he appeared on shipboard, but on shore, in his
+civilian's garb, which was of the neatest, he had as little as possible
+an aroma of winds and waves. He was neither salt nor brown, nor red, nor
+particularly "hearty." He never twitched up his trousers, nor, so far as
+one could see, did he, with his modest, attentive manner, carry himself
+as one accustomed to command. Of course, as a subaltern, he had more
+to do in the way of obeying. He looked as if he followed some sedentary
+calling, and was, indeed, supposed to be decidedly intellectual. He
+was a lamb with women, to whose charms he was, as I have hinted,
+susceptible; but with men he was different, and, I believe, as much of a
+wolf as was necessary. He had a manner of adoring the handsome, insolent
+queen of his affections (I will explain in a moment why I call
+her insolent); indeed, he looked up to her literally as well as
+sentimentally; for she was the least bit the taller of the two. He had
+met her the summer before, on the piazza of a hotel at Fort Hamilton, to
+which, with a brother officer, in a dusty buggy, he had driven over from
+Brooklyn to spend a tremendously hot Sunday,--the kind of day when the
+navy-yard was loathsome; and the acquaintance had been renewed by his
+calling in Twelfth Street on New-Year's Day,--a considerable time
+to wait for a pretext, but which proved the impression had not been
+transitory. The acquaintance ripened, thanks to a zealous cultivation
+(on his part) of occasions which Providence, it must be confessed,
+placed at his disposal none too liberally; so that now Georgina took
+up all his thoughts and a considerable part of his time. He was in love
+with her, beyond a doubt; but he could not flatter himself that she was
+in love with him, though she appeared willing (what was so strange) to
+quarrel with her family about him. He did n't see how she could really
+care for him,--she seemed marked out by nature for so much greater
+a fortune; and he used to say to her, "Ah, you don't--there's no use
+talking, you don't--really care for me at all!" To which she answered,
+"Really? You are very particular. It seems to me it's real enough if I
+let you touch one of my fingertips! "That was one of her ways of being
+insolent Another was simply her manner of looking at him, or at
+other people (when they spoke to her), with her hard, divine blue
+eye,--looking quietly, amusedly, with the air of considering (wholly
+from her own point of view) what they might have said, and then turning
+her head or her back, while, without taking the trouble to answer them,
+she broke into a short, liquid, irrelevant laugh. This may seem to
+contradict what I said just now about her taking the young lieutenant
+in the navy seriously. What I mean is that she appeared to take him more
+seriously than she took anything else. She said to him once, "At any
+rate you have the merit of not being a shop-keeper;" and it was by this
+epithet she was pleased to designate most of the young men who at that
+time flourished in the best society of New York. Even if she had rather
+a free way of expressing general indifference, a young lady is supposed
+to be serious enough when she consents to marry you. For the rest,
+as regards a certain haughtiness that might be observed in Geoigina
+Gressie, my story will probably throw sufficient light upon it She
+remarked to Benyon once that it was none of his business why she liked
+him, but that, to please herself, she did n't mind telling him she
+thought the great Napoleon, before he was celebrated, before he had
+command of the army of Italy, must have looked something like him;
+and she sketched in a few words the sort of figure she imagined
+the incipient Bonaparte to have been,--short, lean, pale, poor,
+intellectual, and with a tremendous future under his hat Benyon asked
+himself whether _he_ had a tremendous future, and what in the world
+Geoigina expected of him in the coming years. He was flattered at the
+comparison, he was ambitious enough not to be frightened at it, and he
+guessed that she perceived a certain analogy between herself and the
+Empress Josephine. She would make a very good empress. That was true;
+Georgina was remarkably imperial. This may not at first seem to make it
+more clear why she should take into her favor an aspirant who, on the
+face of the matter, was not original, and whose Corsica was a flat New
+England seaport; but it afterward became plain that he owed his brief
+happiness--it was very brief--to her father's opposition; her father's
+and her mother's, and even her uncles' and her aunts'. In those days,
+in New York, the different members of a family took an interest in its
+alliances, and the house of Gressie looked askance at an engagement
+between the most beautiful of its daughters and a young man who was not
+in a paying business. Georgina declared that they were meddlesome and
+vulgar,--she could sacrifice her own people, in that way, without
+a scruple,--and Benyon's position improved from the moment that Mr.
+Gressie--ill-advised Mr. Gressie--ordered the girl to have nothing to do
+with him. Georgina was imperial in this--that she wouldn't put up with
+an order. When, in the house in Twelfth Street, it began to be talked
+about that she had better be sent to Europe with some eligible friend,
+Mrs. Portico, for instance, who was always planning to go, and who
+wanted as a companion some young mind, fresh from manuals and extracts,
+to serve as a fountain of history and geography,--when this scheme for
+getting Georgina out of the way began to be aired, she immediately said
+to Raymond Benyon, "Oh, yes, I 'll marry you!" She said it in such an
+off-hand way that, deeply as he desired her, he was almost tempted to
+answer, "But, my dear, have you really thought about it?"
+
+This little drama went on, in New York, in the ancient days, when
+Twelfth Street had but lately ceased to be suburban, when the squares
+had wooden palings, which were not often painted; when there were
+poplars in important thoroughfares and pigs in the lateral ways; when
+the theatres were miles distant from Madison Square, and the battered
+rotunda of Castle Garden echoed with expensive vocal music; when "the
+park" meant the grass-plats of the city hall, and the Bloomingdale
+road was an eligible drive; when Hoboken, of a summer afternoon, was a
+genteel resort, and the handsomest house in town was on the corner
+of the Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth Street. This will strike the modern
+reader, I fear, as rather a primitive epoch; but I am not sure that the
+strength of human passions is in proportion to the elongation of a city.
+Several of them, at any rate, the most robust and most familiar,--love,
+ambition, jealousy, resentment, greed,--subsisted in considerable force
+in the little circle at which we have glanced, where a view by no means
+favorable was taken of Raymond Benyon's attentions to Miss Gressie.
+Unanimity was a family trait among these people (Georgina was an
+exception), especially in regard to the important concerns of life, such
+as marriages and closing scenes. The Gressies hung together; they
+were accustomed to do well for themselves and for each other. They did
+everything well: got themselves born well (they thought it excellent to
+be born a Gressie), lived well, married well, died well, and managed to
+be well spoken of afterward. In deference to this last-mentioned habit,
+I must be careful what I say of them. They took an interest in each
+other's concerns, an interest that could never be regarded as of a
+meddlesome nature, inasmuch as they all thought alike about all their
+affairs, and interference took the happy form of congratulation and
+encouragement. These affairs were invariably lucky, and, as a general
+thing, no Gressie had anything to do but feel that another Gressie had
+been almost as shrewd and decided as he himself would have been. The
+great exception to that, as I have said, was this case of Georgina, who
+struck such a false note, a note that startled them all, when she told
+her father that she should like to unite herself to a young man engaged
+in the least paying business that any Gressie had ever heard of. Her two
+sisters had married into the most flourishing firms, and it was not
+to be thought of that--with twenty cousins growing up around her--she
+should put down the standard of success. Her mother had told her a
+fortnight before this that she must request Mr. Benyon to cease coming
+to the house; for hitherto his suit had been of the most public and
+resolute character. He had been conveyed up town from the Brooklyn
+ferry, in the "stage," on certain evenings, had asked for Miss Georgina
+at the door of the house in Twelfth Street, and had sat with her in the
+front parlor if her parents happened to occupy the back, or in the back
+if the family had disposed itself in the front. Georgina, in her way,
+was a dutiful girl, and she immediately repeated her mother's admonition
+to Beuyon. He was not surprised, for though he was aware that he had
+not, as yet, a great knowledge of society, he flattered himself he could
+tell when--and where--a young man was not wanted. There were houses in
+Brooklyn where such an animal was much appreciated, and there the signs
+were quite different They had been discouraging--except on Georgina's
+pail--from the first of his calling in Twelfth Street Mr. and Mrs.
+Gressie used to look at each other in silence when he came in, and
+indulge in strange, perpendicular salutations, without any shaking of
+hands. People did that at Portsmouth, N.H., when they were glad to
+see you; but in New York there was more luxuriance, and gesture had a
+different value. He had never, in Twelfth Street, been asked to "take
+anything," though the house had a delightful suggestion, a positive
+aroma, of sideboards,--as if there were mahogany "cellarettes" under
+every table. The old people, moreover, had repeatedly expressed surprise
+at the quantity of leisure that officers in the navy seemed to enjoy.
+The only way in which they had not made themselves offensive was
+by always remaining in the other room; though at times even this
+detachment, to which he owed some delightful moments, presented itself
+to Benyon as a form of disapprobation. Of course, after Mrs. Gressie's
+message, his visits were practically at an end; he would n't give the
+girl up, but he would n't be beholden to her father for the opportunity
+to converse with her. Nothing was left for the tender couple--there
+was a curious mutual mistrust in their tenderness--but to meet in the
+squares, or in the topmost streets, or in the sidemost avenues, on
+the afternoons of spring. It was especially during this phase of their
+relations that Georgina struck Benyon as imperial Her whole person
+seemed to exhale a tranquil, happy consciousness of having broken a law.
+She never told him how she arranged the matter at home, how she found it
+possible always to keep the appointments (to meet him out of the house)
+that she so boldly made, in what degree she dissimulated to her parents,
+and how much, in regard to their continued acquaintance, the old people
+suspected and accepted. If Mr. and Mrs. Gressie had forbidden him the
+house, it was not, apparently, because they wished her to walk with him
+in the Tenth Avenue or to sit at his side under the blossoming lilacs
+in Stuyvesant Square. He didn't believe that she told lies in Twelfth
+Street; he thought she was too imperial to lie; and he wondered what she
+said to her mother when, at the end of nearly a whole afternoon of vague
+peregrination with her lover, this bridling, bristling matron asked her
+where she had been. Georgina was capable of simply telling the truth;
+and yet if she simply told the truth, it was a wonder that she had not
+been simply packed off to Europe.
+
+Benyon's ignorance of her pretexts is a proof that this rather
+oddly-mated couple never arrived at perfect intimacy,--in spite of a
+fact which remains to be related. He thought of this afterwards, and
+thought how strange it was that he had not felt more at liberty to ask
+her what she did for him, and how she did it, and how much she suffered
+for him. She would probably not have admitted that she suffered at all,
+and she had no wish to pose for a martyr. Benyon remembered this, as
+I say, in the after years, when he tried to explain to himself certain
+things which simply puzzled him; it came back to him with the vision,
+already faded, of shabby cross-streets, straggling toward rivers, with
+red sunsets, seen through a haze of dust, at the end; a vista through
+which the figures of a young man and a girl slowly receded and
+disappeared,--strolling side by side, with the relaxed pace of desultory
+talk, but more closely linked as they passed into the distance, linked
+by its at last appearing safe to them--in the Tenth Avenue--that the
+young lady should take his arm. They were always approaching that
+inferior thoroughfare; but he could scarcely have told you, in those
+days, what else they were approaching. He had nothing in the world but
+his pay, and he felt that this was rather a "mean" income to offer Miss
+Gressie. Therefore he did n't put it forward; what he offered, instead,
+was the expression--crude often, and almost boyishly extravagant--of a
+delighted admiration of her beauty, the tenderest tones of his voice,
+the softest assurances of his eye and the most insinuating pressure of
+her hand at those moments when she consented to place it in his arm.
+All this was an eloquence which, if necessary, might have been condensed
+into a single sentence; but those few words were scarcely needful, when
+it was as plain that he expected--in general--she would marry him, as it
+was indefinite that he counted upon her for living on a few hundreds
+a year. If she had been a different girl he might have asked her to
+wait,--might have talked to her of the coming of better days, of his
+prospective promotion, of its being wiser, perhaps, that he should leave
+the navy and look about for a more lucrative career. With Georgina it
+was difficult to go into such questions; she had no taste whatever for
+detail. She was delightful as a woman to love, because when a young man
+is in love he discovers that; but she could not be called helpful, for
+she never suggested anything. That is, she never had done so till the
+day she really proposed--for that was the form it took--to become his
+wife without more delay. "Oh, yes, I will marry you;" these words, which
+I quoted a little way back, were not so much the answer to something he
+had said at the moment, as the light conclusion of a report she had just
+made, for the first time, of her actual situation in her father's house.
+
+"I am afraid I shall have to see less of you," she had begun by saying.
+"They watch me so much."
+
+"It is very little already," he answered. "What is once or twice a
+week?"
+
+"That's easy for you to say. You are your own master, but you don't know
+what I go through."
+
+"Do they make it very bad for you, dearest? Do they make scenes?" Benyon
+asked.
+
+"No, of course not. Don't you know us enough to know how we behave? No
+scenes,--that would be a relief. However, I never make them myself, and
+I never will--that's one comfort for you, for the future, if you want to
+know. Father and mother keep very quiet, looking at me as if I were one
+of the lost, with hard, screwing eyes, like gimlets. To me they scarcely
+say anything, but they talk it all over with each other, and try and
+decide what is to be done. It's my belief that father has written to the
+people in Washington--what do you call it! the Department--to have you
+moved away from Brooklyn,--to have you sent to sea."
+
+"I guess that won't do much good. They want me in Brooklyn, they don't
+want me at sea."
+
+"Well, they are capable of going to Europe for a year, on purpose to
+take me," Geoigina said.
+
+"How can they take you, if you won't go? And if you should go, what good
+would it do, if you were only to find me here when you came back, just
+the same as you left me?"
+
+"Oh, well!" said Georgina, with her lovely smile, "of course they think
+that absence would cure me of--cure me of--" And she paused, with a
+certain natural modesty, not saying exactly of what.
+
+"Cure you of what, darling? Say it, please say it," the young man
+murmured, drawing her hand surreptitiously into his arm.
+
+"Of my absurd infatuation!"
+
+"And would it, dearest?"
+
+"Yes, very likely. But I don't mean to try. I sha'n't go to Europe,--not
+when I don't want to. But it's better I should see less of you,--even
+that I should appear--a little--to give you up."
+
+"A little? What do you call a little?"
+
+Georgina said nothing, for a moment. "Well, that, for instance, you
+should n't hold my hand quite so tight!" And she disengaged this
+conscious member from the pressure of his arm.
+
+"What good will that do?" Benyon asked,
+
+"It will make them think it 's all over,--that we have agreed to part."
+
+"And as we have done nothing of the kind, how will that help us?"
+
+They had stopped at the crossing of a street; a heavy dray was lumbering
+slowly past them. Georgina, as she stood there, turned her face to
+her lover, and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At last:
+"Nothing will help us; I don't think we are very happy," she answered,
+while her strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about her
+beautiful lips.
+
+"I don't understand how you see things. I thought you were going to say
+you would marry me!" Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though the
+dray had passed.
+
+"Oh, yes, I will marry you!" And she moved away, across the street. That
+was the manner in which she had said it, and it was very characteristic
+of her. When he saw that she really meant it, he wished they were
+somewhere else,--he hardly knew where the proper place would be,--so
+that he might take her in his arms. Nevertheless, before they separated
+that day he had said to her he hoped she remembered they would be very
+poor, reminding her how great a change she would find it She answered
+that she should n't mind, and presently she said that if this was all
+that prevented them the sooner they were married the better. The next
+time he saw her she was quite of the same opinion; but he found, to his
+surprise, it was now her conviction that she had better not leave her
+father's house. The ceremony should take place secretly, of course; but
+they would wait awhile to let their union be known.
+
+"What good will it do us, then?" Raymond Benyon asked.
+
+Georgina colored. "Well, if you don't know, I can't tell you!"
+
+Then it seemed to him that he did know. Yet, at the same time, he could
+not see why, once the knot was tied, secrecy should be required. When
+he asked what special event they were to wait for, and what should give
+them the signal to appear as man and wife, she answered that her parents
+would probably forgive her, if they were to discover, not too abruptly,
+after six months, that she had taken the great step. Benyon supposed
+that she had ceased to care whether they forgave her or not; but he
+had already perceived that women are full of inconsistencies. He had
+believed her capable of marrying him out of bravado, but the pleasure of
+defiance was absent if the marriage was kept to themselves. Now, too, it
+appeared that she was not especially anxious to defy,--she was disposed
+rather to manage, to cultivate opportunities and reap the fruits of a
+waiting game.
+
+"Leave it to me. Leave it to me. You are only a blundering man,"
+Georgina said. "I shall know much better than you the right moment for
+saying, 'Well, you may as well make the best of it, because we have
+already done it!'"
+
+That might very well be, but Benyon did n't quite understand, and he was
+awkwardly anxious (for a lover) till it came over him afresh that
+there was one thing at any rate in his favor, which was simply that
+the loveliest girl he had ever seen was ready to throw herself into his
+arms. When he said to her, "There is one thing I hate in this plan of
+yours,--that, for ever so few weeks, so few days, your father should
+support my wife,"--when he made this homely remark, with a little flush
+of sincerity in his face, she gave him a specimen of that unanswerable
+laugh of hers, and declared that it would serve Mr. Gressie right for
+being so barbarous and so horrid. It was Benyon's view that from the
+moment she disobeyed her father, she ought to cease to avail herself
+of his protection; but I am bound to add that he was not particularly
+surprised at finding this a kind of honor in which her feminine
+nature was little versed. To make her his wife first--at the earliest
+moment--whenever she would, and trust to fortune, and the new influence
+he should have, to give him, as soon thereafter as possible, complete
+possession of her,--this rather promptly presented itself to the young
+man as the course most worthy of a person of spirit. He would be only
+a pedant who would take nothing because he could not get everything at
+once. They wandered further than usual this afternoon, and the dusk was
+thick by the time he brought her back to her father's door. It was not
+his habit to como so near it, but to-day they had so much to talk about
+that he actually stood with her for ten minutes at the foot of the
+steps. He was keeping her hand in his, and she let it rest there while
+she said,--by way of a remark that should sum up all their reasons and
+reconcile their differences,--
+
+"There's one great thing it will do, you know; it will make me safe."
+
+"Safe from what?"
+
+"From marrying any one else."
+
+"Ah, my girl, if you were to do that--!" Benyon exclaimed; but he did
+n't mention the other branch of the contingency. Instead of this, he
+looked up at the blind face of the house--there were only dim lights in
+two or three windows, and no apparent eyes--and up and down the empty
+street, vague in the friendly twilight; after which he drew Georgina
+Gressie to his breast and gave her a long, passionate kiss. Yes,
+decidedly, he felt, they had better be married. She had run quickly up
+the steps, and while she stood there, with her hand on the bell, she
+almost hissed at him, under her breath, "Go away, go away; Amanda's
+coming!" Amanda was the parlor-maid, and it was in those terms that the
+Twelfth Street Juliet dismissed her Brooklyn Romeo. As he wandered back
+into the Fifth Avenue, where the evening air was conscious of a vernal
+fragrance from the shrubs in the little precinct of the pretty Gothic
+church ornamenting that charming part of the street, he was too absorbed
+in the impression of the delightful contact from which the girl had
+violently released herself to reflect that the great reason she had
+mentioned a moment before was a reason for their marrying, of course,
+but not in the least a reason for their not making it public. But, as I
+said in the opening lines of this chapter, if he did not understand his
+mistress's motives at the end, he cannot be expected to have understood
+them at the beginning.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Mrs. Portico, as we know, was always talking about going to Europe;
+but she had not yet--I mean a year after the incident I have just
+related--put her hand upon a youthful cicerone. Petticoats, of course,
+were required; it was necessary that her companion should be of the sex
+which sinks most naturally upon benches, in galleries and cathredrals,
+and pauses most frequently upon staircases that ascend to celebrated
+views. She was a widow, with a good fortune and several sons, all of
+whom were in Wall Street, and none of them capable of the relaxed pace
+at which she expected to take her foreign tour. They were all in a state
+of tension. They went through life standing. She was a short, broad,
+high-colored woman, with a loud voice, and superabundant black hair,
+arranged in a way peculiar to herself,--with so many combs and bands
+that it had the appearance of a national coiffure. There was an
+impression in New York, about 1845, that the style was Danish; some one
+had said something about having seen it in Schleswig-Holstein.
+
+Mrs. Portico had a bold, humorous, slightly flamboyant look; people who
+saw her for the first time received an impression that her late husband
+had married the daughter of a barkeeper or the proprietress of a
+menageria. Her high, hoarse, good-natured voice seemed to connect her in
+some way with public life; it was not pretty enough to suggest that she
+might have been an actress. These ideas quickly passed away, however,
+even if you were not sufficiently initiated to know--as all the
+Grossies, for instance, knew so well--that her origin, so far from
+being enveloped in mystery, was almost the sort of thing she might have
+boasted of. But in spite of the high pitch of her appearance, she didn't
+boast of anything; she was a genial, easy, comical, irreverent person,
+with a large charity, a democratic, fraternizing turn of mind, and a
+contempt for many worldly standards, which she expressed not in the
+least in general axioms (for she had a mortal horror of philosophy), but
+in violent ejaculations on particular occasions. She had not a grain of
+moral timidity, and she fronted a delicate social problem as sturdily as
+she would have barred the way of a gentleman she might have met in her
+vestibule with the plate-chest The only thing which prevented her being
+a bore in orthodox circles was that she was incapable of discussion. She
+never lost her temper, but she lost her vocabulary, and ended quietly
+by praying that Heaven would give her an opportunity to _show_ what she
+believed.
+
+She was an old friend of Mr. and Mrs. Gressie, who esteemed her for the
+antiquity of her lineage and the frequency of her subscriptions, and to
+whom she rendered the service of making them feel liberal,--like
+people too sure of their own position to be frightened. She was their
+indulgence, their dissipation, their point of contact with dangerous
+heresies; so long as they continued to see her they could not be accused
+of being narrow-minded,--a matter as to which they were perhaps vaguely
+conscious of the necessity of taking their precautions. Mrs. Portico
+never asked herself whether she liked the Gressies; she had no
+disposition for morbid analysis, she accepted transmitted associations,
+and she found, somehow, that her acquaintance with these people helped
+her to relieve herself. She was always making scenes in their
+drawing-room, scenes half indignant, half jocose, like all her
+manifestations, to which it must be confessed that they adapted
+themselves beautifully. They never "met" her in the language of
+controversy; but always collected to watch her, with smiles and
+comfortable platitudes, as if they envied her superior richness of
+temperament She took an interest in Georgina, who seemed to her
+different from the others, with suggestions about her of being likely
+not to marry so unrefreshingly as her sisters had done, and of a high,
+bold standard of duty. Her sisters had married from duty, but Mrs.
+Portico would rather have chopped off one of her large, plump hands than
+behave herself so well as that She had, in her daughterless condition, a
+certain ideal of a girl that should be beautiful and romantic, with
+lustrous eyes, and a little persecuted, so that she, Mrs. Portico, might
+get her out of her troubles. She looked to Georgina, to a considerable
+degree, to gratify her in this way; but she had really never understood
+Geoigina at all She ought to have been shrewd, but she lacked this
+refinement, and she never understood anything until after many
+disappointments and vexations. It was difficult to startle her, but she
+was much startled by a communication that this young lady made her one
+fine spring morning. With her florid appearance and her speculative
+mind, she was probably the most innocent woman in New York.
+
+Georgina came very early,--earlier even than visits were paid in New
+York thirty years ago; and instantly, without any preface, looking her
+straight in the face, told Mrs. Portico that she was in great trouble
+and must appeal to her for assistance. Georgina had in her aspect no
+symptom of distress; she was as fresh and beautiful as the April
+day itself; she held up her head and smiled, with a sort of familiar
+bravado, looking like a young woman who would naturally be on good terms
+with fortune. It was not in the least in the tone of a person making a
+confession or relating a misadventure that she presently said: "Well,
+you must know, to begin with--of course, it will surprise you--that I 'm
+married."
+
+"Married, Georgina Grossie!" Mrs. Portico repeated in her most resonant
+tones.
+
+Georgina got up, walked with her majestic step across the room, and
+closed the door. Then she stood there, her back pressed against the
+mahogany panels, indicating only by the distance she had placed between
+herself and her hostess the consciousness of an irregular position. "I
+am not Georgina Gressie! I am Georgina Benyon,--and it has become plain,
+within a short time, that the natural consequence will take place."
+
+Mrs. Portico was altogether bewildered. "The natural consequence?" she
+exclaimed, staring.
+
+"Of one's being married, of course,--I suppose you know what that is. No
+one must know anything about it. I want you to take me to Europe."
+
+Mrs. Portico now slowly rose from her place, and approached her visitor,
+looking at her from head to foot as she did so, as if to challenge the
+truth of her remarkable announcement. She rested her hands on Georgina's
+shoulders a moment, gazing into her blooming face, and then she drew her
+closer and kissed her. In this way the girl was conducted back to the
+sofa, where, in a conversation of extreme intimacy, she opened Mrs.
+Portico's eyes wider than they had ever been opened before. She was
+Raymond Benyon's wife; they had been married a year, but no one knew
+anything about it. She had kept it from every one, and she meant to go
+on keeping it. The ceremony had taken place in a little Episcopal church
+at Harlem, one Sunday afternoon, after the service. There was no one in
+that dusty suburb who knew them; the clergyman, vexed at being detained,
+and wanting to go home to tea, had made no trouble; he tied the knot
+before they could turn round. It was ridiculous how easy it had been.
+Raymond had told him frankly that it must all be under the rose, as the
+young lady's family disapproved of what she was doing. But she was of
+legal age, and perfectly free; he could see that for himself. The parson
+had given a grunt as he looked at her over his spectacles. It was not
+very complimentary; it seemed to say that she was indeed no chicken. Of
+course she looked old for a girl; but she was not a girl now, was she?
+Raymond had certified his own identity as an officer in the United
+States Navy (he had papers, besides his uniform, which he wore), and
+introduced the clergyman to a friend he had brought with him, who was
+also in the navy, a venerable paymaster. It was he who gave Georgina
+away, as it were; he was an old, old man, a regular grandmother, and
+perfectly safe. He had been married three times himself. After the
+ceremony she went back to her father's; but she saw Mr. Benyon the next
+day. After that, she saw him--for a little while--pretty often. He
+was always begging her to come to him altogether; she must do him that
+justice. But she wouldn't--she wouldn't now--perhaps she would n't
+ever. She had her reasons, which seemed to her very good, but were very
+difficult to explain. She would tell Mrs. Portico in plenty of time what
+they were. But that was not the question now, whether they were good or
+bad; the question was for her to get away from the country for several
+months,--far away from any one who had ever known her. She would like
+to go to some little place in Spain or Italy, where she should be out of
+the world until everything was over.
+
+Mrs. Portico's heart gave a jump as this serene, handsome, familiar
+girl, sitting there with a hand in hers, and pouring forth this
+extraordinary tale, spoke of everything being over. There was a glossy
+coldness in it, an unnatural lightness, which suggested--poor Mrs.
+Portico scarcely knew what. If Georgina was to become a mother, it
+was to be supposed she was to remain a mother. She said there was a
+beautiful place in Italy--Genoa--of which Raymond had often spoken--and
+where he had been more than once,--he admired it so much; could n't
+they go there and be quiet for a little while? She was asking a great
+favor,--that she knew very well; but if Mrs. Portico would n't take her,
+she would find some one who would. They had talked of such a journey
+so often; and, certainly, if Mrs. Portico had been willing before, she
+ought to be much more willing now. The girl declared that she must do
+something,--go somewhere,--keep, in one way or another, her situation
+unperceived. There was no use talking to her about telling,--she would
+rather die than tell. No doubt it seemed strange, but she knew what she
+was about. No one had guessed anything yet,--she had succeeded perfectly
+in doing what she wished,--and her father and mother believed--as Mrs.
+Portico had believed,--had n't she?--that, any time the last year,
+Raymond Beuyon was less to her than he had been before. Well, so he was;
+yes, he was. He had gone away--he was off, Heaven knew where--in the
+Pacific; she was alone, and now she would remain alone. The family
+believed it was all over,--with his going back to his ship, and other
+things, and they were right: for it _was_ over, or it would be soon.
+
+Mrs. Portico, by this time, had grown almost afraid of her young friend;
+_she_ had so little fear, she had even, as it were, so little shame. If
+the good lady had been accustomed to analyzing things a little more,
+she would have said she had so little conscience. She looked at Georgina
+with dilated eyes,--her visitor was so much the calmer of the two,--and
+exclaimed, and murmured, and sunk back, and sprung forward, and wiped
+her forehead with her pocket-handkerchief! There were things she didn't
+understand; that they should all have been so deceived, that they should
+have thought Georgina was giving her lover up (they flattered themselves
+she was discouraged, or had grown tired of him), when she was really
+only making it impossible she should belong to any one else. And with
+this, her inconsequence, her capriciousness, her absence of motive, the
+way she contradicted herself, her apparent belief that she could hush up
+such a situation forever! There was nothing shameful in having married
+poor Mr. Benyon, even in a little church at Harlem, and being given away
+by a paymaster. It was much more shameful to be in such a state without
+being prepared to make the proper explanations. And she must have
+seen very little of her husband; she must have given him up--so far
+as meeting him went--almost as soon as she had taken him. Had not Mrs.
+Gressie herself told Mrs. Portico (in the preceding October, it must
+have been) that there now would be no need of sending Georgina away,
+inasmuch as the affair with the little navy man--a project in every way
+so unsuitable--had quite blown over?
+
+"After our marriage I saw him less, I saw him a great deal less,"
+Georgina explained; but her explanation only appeared to make the
+mystery more dense.
+
+"I don't see, in that case, what on earth you married him for!"
+
+"We had to be more careful; I wished to appear to have given him up. Of
+course we were really more intimate,--I saw him differently," Georgina
+said, smiling.
+
+"I should think so! I can't for the life of me see why you were n't
+discovered."
+
+"All I can say is we weren't No doubt it's remarkable. We managed very
+well,--that is, I managed,--he did n't want to manage at all. And then,
+father and mother are incredibly stupid!"
+
+Mrs. Portico exhaled a comprehensive moan, feeling glad, on the whole,
+that she had n't a daughter, while Georgina went on to furnish a few
+more details. Raymond Benyon, in the summer, had been ordered from
+Brooklyn to Charlestown, near Boston, where, as Mrs. Portico perhaps
+knew, there was another navy-yard, in which there was a temporary press
+of work, requiring more oversight He had remained there several months,
+during which he had written to her urgently to come to him, and during
+which, as well, he had received notice that he was to rejoin his ship a
+little later. Before doing so he came back to Brooklyn for a few weeks
+to wind up his work there, and then she had seen him--well, pretty
+often. That was the best time of all the year that had elapsed since
+their marriage. It was a wonder at home that nothing had then been
+guessed; because she had really been reckless, and Benyon had even tried
+to force on a disclosure. But they _were_ stupid, that was very certain.
+He had besought her again and again to put an end to their false
+position, but she did n't want it any more than she had wanted it
+before. They had rather a bad parting; in fact, for a pair of lovers, it
+was a very queer parting indeed. He did n't know, now, the thing she had
+come to tell Mrs. Portico. She had not written to him. He was on a very
+long cruise. It might be two years before he returned to the United
+States. "I don't care how long he stays away," Georgina said, very
+simply.
+
+"You haven't mentioned why you married him. Perhaps you don't remember,"
+Mrs. Portico broke out, with her masculine laugh.
+
+"Oh, yes; I loved him!"
+
+"And you have got over that?"
+
+Georgina hesitated a moment. "Why, no, Mrs. Portico, of course I
+haven't; Raymond's a splendid fellow."
+
+"Then why don't you live with him? You don't explain that."
+
+"What would be the use when he's always away? How can one live with a
+man that spends half his life in the South Seas? If he was n't in
+the navy it would be different; but to go through everything,--I mean
+everything that making our marriage known would bring upon me,--the
+scolding and the exposure and the ridicule, the scenes at home,--to go
+through it all, just for the idea, and yet be alone here, just as I
+was before, without my husband after all,--with none of the good of
+him,"--and here Georgina looked at her hostess as if with the
+certitude that such an enumeration of inconveniences would touch her
+effectually,--"really, Mrs. Portico, I am bound to say I don't think
+that would be worth while; I haven't the courage for it."
+
+"I never thought you were a coward," said Mrs. Portico.
+
+"Well, I am not,--if you will give me time. I am very patient."
+
+"I never thought that, either."
+
+"Marrying changes one," said Georgina, still smiling.
+
+"It certainly seems to have had a very peculiar effect upon you. Why
+don't you make him leave the navy, and arrange your life comfortably,
+like every one else?"
+
+"I would n't for the world interfere with his prospects--with his
+promotion. That is sure to come for him, and to come quickly, he has
+such talents. He is devoted to his profession; it would ruin him to
+leave it."
+
+"My dear young woman, you are a wonderful creature!" Mrs. Portico
+exclaimed, looking at her companion as if she had been in a glass case.
+
+"So poor Raymond says," Georgina answered, smiling more than ever.
+
+"Certainly, I should have been very sorry to marry a navy man; but if I
+had married him, I should stick to him, in the face of all the scoldings
+in the universe!"
+
+"I don't know what your parents may have been; I know what mine are,",
+Georgina replied, with some dignity. "When he's a captain, we shall come
+out of hiding."
+
+"And what shall you do meanwhile? What will you do with your children?
+Where will you hide them? What will you do with this one?"
+
+Georgina rested her eyes on her lap for a minute; then, raising them,
+she met those of Mrs. Portico. "Somewhere in Europe," she said, in her
+sweet tone.
+
+"Georgina Gressie, you 're a monster!" the elder lady cried.
+
+"I know what I am about, and you will help me," the girl went on.
+
+"I will go and tell your father and mother the whole story,--that's what
+I will do!"
+
+"I am not in the least afraid of that, not in the least. You will help
+me,--I assure you that you will."
+
+"Do you mean I will support the child?"
+
+Georgina broke into a laugh. "I do believe you would, if I were to ask
+you! But I won't go so far as that; I have something of my own. All I
+want you to do is to be with me."
+
+"At Genoa,--yes, you have got it all fixed! You say Mr. Benyon is so
+fond of the place. That's all very well; but how will he like his infant
+being deposited there?"
+
+"He won't like it at all. You see I tell you the whole truth," said
+Georgina, gently.
+
+"Much obliged; it's a pity you keep it all for me! It is in his power,
+then, to make you behave properly. _He_ can publish your marriage if you
+won't; and if he does you will have to acknowledge your child."
+
+"Publish, Mrs. Portico? How little you know my Raymond! He will never
+break a promise; he will go through fire first."
+
+"And what have you got him to promise?'
+
+"Never to insist on a disclosure against my will; never to claim me
+openly as his wife till I think it is time; never to let any one know
+what has passed between us if I choose to keep it still a secret--to
+keep it for years--to keep it forever. Never to do anything in the
+matter himself, but to leave it to me. For this he has given me his
+solemn word of honor. And I know what that means!"
+
+Mrs. Portico, on the sofa, fairly bounded.
+
+"You _do_ know what you are about And Mr. Benyon strikes me as more
+fantastic even than yourself. I never heard of a man taking such an
+imbecile vow. What good can it do him?"
+
+"What good? The good it did him was that, it gratified me. At the
+time he took it he would have made any promise under the sun. It was
+a condition I exacted just at the very last, before the marriage took
+place. There was nothing at that moment he would have refused me;
+there was nothing I could n't have made him do. He was in love to that
+degree--but I don't want to boast," said Georgina, with quiet grandeur.
+"He wanted--he wanted--" she added; but then she paused.
+
+"He does n't seem to have wanted much!" Mrs. Portico cried, in a tone
+which made Georgina turn to the window, as if it might have reached the
+street.
+
+Her hostess noticed the movement and went on: "Oh, my dear, if I ever do
+tell your story, I will tell it so that people will hear it!"
+
+"You never will tell it. What I mean is, that Raymond wanted the
+sanction--of the affair at the church--because he saw that I would never
+do without it. Therefore, for him, the sooner we had it the better, and,
+to hurry it on, he was ready to take any pledge."
+
+"You have got it pat enough," said Mrs. Portico, in homely phrase. "I
+don't know what you mean by sanctions, or what _you_ wanted of 'em!"
+
+Georgina got up, holding rather higher than before that beautiful head
+which, in spite of the embarrassments of this interview, had not yet
+perceptibly abated of its elevation. "Would you have liked me to--to not
+marry?"
+
+Mrs. Portico rose also, and, flushed with the agitation of unwonted
+knowledge,--it was as if she had discovered a skeleton in her favorite
+cupboard,--faced her young friend for a moment. Then her conflicting
+sentiments resolved themselves into an abrupt question, uttered,--for
+Mrs. Portico,--with much solemnity: "Georgina Gressie, were you really
+in love with him?"
+
+The question suddenly dissipated the girl's strange, studied, wilful
+coldness; she broke out, with a quick flash of passion,--a passion that,
+for the moment, was predominantly anger, "Why else, in Heaven's name,
+should I have done what I have done? Why else should I have married him?
+What under the sun had I to gain?"
+
+A certain quiver in Georgina's voice, a light in her eye which seemed to
+Mrs. Portico more spontaneous, more human, as she uttered these words,
+caused them to affect her hostess rather less painfully than anything
+she had yet said. She took the girl's hand and emitted indefinite,
+admonitory sounds. "Help me, my dear old friend, help me," Georgina
+continued, in a low, pleading tone; and in a moment Mrs. Portico saw
+that the tears were in her eyes.
+
+"You 're a queer mixture, my child," she exclaimed. "Go straight home to
+your own mother, and tell her everything; that is your best help."
+
+"You are kinder than my mother. You must n't judge her by yourself."
+
+"What can she do to you? How can she hurt you? We are not living in
+pagan times," said Mrs. Portico, who was seldom so historical "Besides,
+you have no reason to speak of your mother--to think of her, even--so!
+She would have liked you to marry a man of some property; but she has
+always been a good mother to you."
+
+At this rebuke Georgina suddenly kindled again; she was, indeed, as Mrs.
+Portico had said, a queer mixture. Conscious, evidently, that she could
+not satisfactorily justify her present stiffness, she wheeled round upon
+a grievance which absolved her from self-defence. "Why, then, did he
+make that promise, if he loved me? No man who really loved me would have
+made it,--and no man that was a man, as I understand being a man! He
+might have seen that I only did it to test him,--to see if he wanted to
+take advantage of being left free himself. It is a proof that he does
+n't love me,--not as he ought to have done; and in such a case as that a
+woman is n't bound to make sacrifices!"
+
+Mrs. Portico was not a person of a nimble intellect; her mind moved
+vigorously, but heavily; yet she sometimes made happy guesses. She saw
+that Georgia's emotions were partly real and partly fictitious; that,
+as regards this last matter, especially, she was trying to "get up" a
+resentment, in order to excuse herself. The pretext was absurd, and the
+good lady was struck with its being heartless on the part of her young
+visitor to reproach poor Benyon with a concession on which she had
+insisted, and which could only be a proof of his devotion, inasmuch as
+he left her free while he bound himself. Altogether, Mrs. Portico was
+shocked and dismayed at such a want of simplicity in the behavior of a
+young person whom she had hitherto believed to be as candid as she was
+elegant, and her appreciation of this discovery expressed itself in the
+uncompromising remark: "You strike me as a very bad girl, my dear; you
+strike me as a very bad girl!"
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+It will doubtless seem to the reader very singular that, in spite of
+this reflection, which appeared to sum up her judgment of the matter,
+Mrs. Portico should, in the course of a very few days, have consented to
+everything that Georgina asked of her. I have thought it well to narrate
+at length the first conversation that took place between them, but I
+shall not trace further the details of the girl's hard pleading, or
+the steps by which--in the face of a hundred robust and salutary
+convictions--the loud, kind, sharp, simple, sceptical, credulous woman
+took under her protection a damsel whose obstinacy she could not speak
+of without getting red with anger. It was the simple fact of Georgina's
+personal condition that moved her; this young lady's greatest eloquence
+was the seriousness of her predicament She might be bad, and she had a
+splendid, careless, insolent, fair-faced way of admitting it, which at
+moments, incoherently, inconsistently, and irresistibly, resolved the
+harsh confession into tears of weakness; but Mrs. Portico had known her
+from her rosiest years, and when Georgina declared that she could n't go
+home, that she wished to be with her and not with her mother, that she
+could n't expose herself,--how could she?--and that she must remain with
+her and her only till the day they should sail, the poor lady was forced
+to make that day a reality. She was overmastered, she was cajoled,
+she was, to a certain extent, fascinated. She had to accept Georgina's
+rigidity (she had none of her own to oppose to it; she was only violent,
+she was not continuous), and once she did this, it was plain, after all,
+that to take her young friend to Europe was to help her, and to leave
+her alone was not to help her. Georgina literally frightened Mrs.
+Portico into compliance. She was evidently capable of strange things if
+thrown upon her own devices.
+
+So, from one day to another Mrs. Portico announced that she was really
+at last about to sail for foreign lands (her doctor having told her that
+if she did n't look out she would get too old to enjoy them), and that
+she had invited that robust Miss Gressie, who could stand so long on her
+feet, to accompany her. There was joy in the house of Gressie at this
+announcement, for though the danger was over, it was a great general
+advantage to Georgina to go, and the Gressies were always elated at the
+prospect of an advantage. There was a danger that she might meet Mr.
+Benyon on the other side of the world; but it didn't seem likely that
+Mrs. Portico would lend herself to a plot of that kind. If she had taken
+it into her head to favor their love affair, she would have done
+it frankly, and Georgina would have been married by this time. Her
+arrangements were made as quickly as her decision had been--or rather
+had appeared--slow; for this concerned those agile young men down town.
+Georgina was perpetually at her house; it was understood in Twelfth
+Street that she was talking over her future travels with her kind
+friend. Talk there was, of course to a considerable degree; but after it
+was settled they should start nothing more was said about the motive
+of the journey. Nothing was said, that is, till the night before they
+sailed; then a few words passed between them. Georgina had already
+taken leave of her relations in Twelfth Street, and was to sleep at
+Mrs. Portico's in order to go down to the ship at an early hour. The
+two ladies were sitting together in the firelight, silent, with the
+consciousness of corded luggage, when the elder one suddenly remarked to
+her companion that she seemed to be taking a great deal upon herself in
+assuming that Raymond Benyon wouldn't force her hand. _He_ might
+choose to acknowledge his child, if she didn't; there were promises
+and promises, and many people would consider they had been let off when
+circumstances were so altered. She would have to reckon with Mr. Benyon
+more than she thought.
+
+"I know what I am about," Georgina answered. "There is only one promise,
+for him. I don't know what you mean by circumstances being altered."
+
+"Everything seems to me to be changed," poor Mrs. Portico murmured,
+rather tragically.
+
+"Well, he is n't, and he never will! I am sure of him,--as sure as that
+I sit here. Do you think I would have looked at him if I had n't known
+he was a man of his word?"
+
+"You have chosen him well, my dear," said Mrs. Portico, who by this time
+was reduced to a kind of bewildered acquiescence.
+
+"Of course I have chosen him well! In such a matter as this he will be
+perfectly splendid." Then suddenly, "Perfectly splendid,--that's why I
+cared for him!" she repeated, with a flash of incongruous passion.
+
+This seemed to Mrs. Portico audacious to the point of being sublime; but
+she had given up trying to understand anything that the girl might
+say or do. She understood less and less, after they had disembarked in
+England and begun to travel southward; and she understood least of all
+when, in the middle of the winter, the event came off with which, in
+imagination, she had tried to familiarize herself, but which, when it
+occurred, seemed to her beyond measure strange and dreadful. It took
+place at Genoa, for Georgina had made up her mind that there would be
+more privacy in a big town than in a little; and she wrote to America
+that both Mrs. Portico and she had fallen in love with the place and
+would spend two or three months there. At that time people in the United
+States knew much less than to-day about the comparative attractions
+of foreign cities, and it was not thought surprising that absent
+New Yorkers should wish to linger in a seaport where they might find
+apartments, according to Georgina's report, in a palace painted in
+fresco by Vandyke and Titian. Georgina, in her letters, omitted, it will
+be seen, no detail that could give color to Mrs. Portico's long stay at
+Genoa. In such a palace--where the travellers hired twenty gilded rooms
+for the most insignificant sum--a remarkably fine boy came into the
+world. Nothing could have been more successful and comfortable than
+this transaction. Mrs. Portico was almost appalled at the facility and
+felicity of it. She was by this time in a pretty bad way, and--what
+had never happened to her before in her life--she suffered from chronic
+depression of spirits. She hated to have to lie, and now she was lying
+all the time. Everything she wrote home, everything that had been said
+or done in connection with their stay in Genoa, was a lie. The way
+they remained indoors to avoid meeting chance compatriots was a lie.
+Compatriots, in Genoa, at that period, were very rare; but nothing could
+exceed the businesslike completeness of Georgina's precautions. Her
+nerves, her self-possession, her apparent want of feeling, excited on
+Mrs. Portico's part a kind of gloomy suspense; a morbid anxiety to see
+how far her companion would go took possession of the excellent woman,
+who, a few months before, hated to fix her mind on disagreeable things.
+
+Georgina went very far indeed; she did everything in her power to
+dissimulate the origin of her child. The record of its birth was made
+under a false name, and he was baptized at the nearest church by a
+Catholic priest. A magnificent contadina was brought to light by
+the doctor in a village in the hills, and this big, brown, barbarous
+creature, who, to do her justice, was full of handsome, familiar smiles
+and coarse tenderness, was constituted nurse to Raymond Benyon's son.
+She nursed him for a fortnight under the mother's eye, and she was then
+sent back to her village with the baby in her arms and sundry gold coin
+knotted into a corner of her rude pocket-handkerchief. Mr. Gressie had
+given his daughter a liberal letter of credit on a London banker, and
+she was able, for the present, to make abundant provision for the little
+one. She called Mrs. Portico's attention to the fact that she spent none
+of her money on futilities; she kept it all for her small pensioner
+in the Genoese hills. Mrs. Portico beheld these strange doings with a
+stupefaction that occasionally broke into passionate protest; then she
+relapsed into a brooding sense of having now been an accomplice so far
+that she must be an accomplice to the end. The two ladies went down to
+Rome--Georgina was in wonderful trim--to finish the season, and
+here Mrs. Portico became convinced that she intended to abandon her
+offspring. She had not driven into the country to see the nursling
+before leaving Genoa,--she had said that she could n't bear to see it in
+such a place and among such people. Mrs. Portico, it must be added,
+had felt the force of this plea,--felt it as regards a plan of her own,
+given up after being hotly entertained for a few hours, of devoting a
+day, by herself, to a visit to the big contadina. It seemed to her that
+if she should see the child in the sordid hands to which Georgina had
+consigned it she would become still more of a participant than she was
+already. This young woman's blooming hardness, after they got to Borne,
+acted upon her like a kind of Medusa-mask. She had seen a horrible
+thing, she had been mixed up with it, and her motherly heart had
+received a mortal chill. It became more clear to her every day that,
+though Georgina would continue to send the infant money in considerable
+quantities, she had dispossessed herself of it forever. Together with
+this induction a fixed idea settled in her mind,--the project of taking
+the baby herself, of making him her own, of arranging that matter with
+the father. The countenance she had given Georgina up to this point was
+an effective pledge that she would not expose her; but she could adopt
+the child without exposing her; she could say that he was a lovely
+baby--he was lovely, fortunately--whom she had picked up in a poor
+village in Italy,--a village that had been devastated by brigands. She
+would pretend--she could pretend; oh, yes, of course, she could pretend!
+Everything was imposture now, and she could go on to lie as she had
+begun. The falsity of the whole business sickened her; it made her so
+yellow that she scarcely knew herself in her glass. None the less, to
+rescue the child, even if she had to become falser still, would be in
+some measure an atonement for the treachery to which she had already
+lent herself. She began to hate Georgina, who had drawn her into such an
+atrocious current, and if it had not been for two considerations she
+would have insisted on their separating. One was the deference she owed
+to Mr. and Mrs. Gressie, who had reposed such a trust in her; the other
+was that she must keep hold of the mother till she had got possession of
+the infant Meanwhile, in this forced communion, her aversion to her
+companion increased; Georgina came to appear to her a creature of brass,
+of iron; she was exceedingly afraid of her, and it seemed to her now a
+wonder of wonders that she should ever have trusted her enough to come
+so far. Georgina showed no consciousness of the change in Mrs. Portico,
+though there was, indeed, at present, not even a pretence of confidence
+between the two. Miss Gressie--that was another lie, to which Mrs.
+Portico had to lend herself--was bent on enjoying Europe, and was
+especially delighted with Rome. She certainly had the courage of her
+undertaking, and she confessed to Mrs. Portico that she had left Raymond
+Benyon, and meant to continue to leave him, in ignorance of what had
+taken place at Genoa. There was a certain confidence, it must be said,
+in that. He was now in Chinese waters, and she probably should not see
+him for years.
+
+Mrs. Portico took counsel with herself, and the result of her cogitation
+was, that she wrote to Mr. Benyon that a charming little boy had
+been born to him, and that Georgina had put him to nurse with Italian
+peasants, but that, if he would kindly consent to it, she, Mrs. Portico,
+would bring him up much better than that. She knew not how to address
+her letter, and Georgina, even if _she_ should know, which was doubtful,
+would never tell her; so she sent the missive to the care of the
+Secretary of the Navy, at Washington, with an earnest request that it
+might immediately be forwarded. Such was Mrs. Portico's last effort in
+this strange business of Georgina's. I relate rather a complicated
+fact in a very few words when I say that the poor lady's anxieties,
+indignations, repentances, preyed upon her until they fairly broke her
+down. Various persons whom she knew in Borne notified her that the air
+of the Seven Hills was plainly unfavorable to her, and she had made
+up her mind to return to her native land, when she found that, in her
+depressed condition, malarial fever had laid its hand upon her. She was
+unable to move, and the matter was settled for her in the course of an
+illness which, happily, was not prolonged. I have said that she was not
+obstinate, and the resistance that she made on the present occasion
+was not worthy even of her spasmodic energy. Brain-fever made its
+appearance, and she died at the end of three weeks, during which
+Georgina's attentions to her patient and protectress had been
+unremitting. There were other Americans in Rome who, after this
+sad event, extended to the bereaved young lady every comfort and
+hospitality. She had no lack of opportunities for returning under a
+proper escort to New York. She selected, you may be sure, the best, and
+re-entered her father's house, where she took to plain dressing; for she
+sent all her pocket-money, with the utmost secrecy, to the little boy in
+the Genoese hills.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+"Why should he come if he doesn't like you? He is under no obligation,
+and he has his ship to look after. Why should he sit for an hour at a
+time, and why should he be so pleasant?"
+
+"Do you think he is very pleasant?" Kate Theory asked, turning away her
+face from her sister. It was important that Mildred should not see how
+little the expression of that charming countenance corresponded with the
+inquiry.
+
+This precaution was useless, however, for in a moment Mildred said, from
+the delicately draped couch, where she lay at the open window, "Kate
+Theory, don't be affected!"
+
+"Perhaps it's for you he comes. I don't see why he should n't; you are
+far more attractive than I, and you have a great deal more to say. How
+can he help seeing that you are the cleverest of the clever? You can
+talk to him of everything: of the dates of the different eruptions, of
+the statues and bronzes in the Museum, which you have never seen, poor
+darling! but which you know more about than he does, than any one does.
+What was it you began on last time? Oh, yes, you poured forth floods
+about Magna Gr�cia. And then--and then--" But with this Kate Theory
+paused; she felt it would n't do to speak the words that had risen to
+her lips. That her sister was as beautiful as a saint, and as delicate
+and refined as an angel,--she had been on the point of saying something
+of that sort But Mildred's beauty and delicacy were the fairness of
+mortal disease, and to praise her for her refinement was simply to
+intimate that she had the tenuity of a consumptive. So, after she had
+checked herself, the younger girl--she was younger only by a year
+or two--simply kissed her tenderly, and settled the knot of the lace
+handkerchief that was tied over her head. Mildred knew what she had
+been going to say,--knew why she had stopped. Mildred knew everything,
+without ever leaving her room, or leaving, at least, that little salon
+of their own, at the _pension_, which she had made so pretty by simply
+lying there, at the window that had the view of the bay and of Vesuvius,
+and telling Kate how to arrange and rearrange everything. Since it
+began to be plain that Mildred must spend her small remnant of years
+altogether in warm climates, the lot of the two sisters had been cast in
+the ungarnished hostelries of southern Europe. Their little sitting-room
+was sure to be very ugly, and Mildred was never happy till it was
+rearranged. Her sister fell to work, as a matter of course, the first
+day, and changed the place of all the tables, sofas, chairs, till every
+combination had been tried, and the invalid thought at last that there
+was a little effect Kate Theory had a taste of her own, and her ideas
+were not always the same as her sister's; but she did whatever Mildred
+liked, and if the poor girl had told her to put the doormat on the
+dining-table, or the clock under the sofa, she would have obeyed without
+a murmur. Her own ideas, her personal tastes, had been folded up and put
+away, like garments out of season, in drawers and trunks, with camphor
+and lavender. They were not, as a general thing, for southern wear,
+however indispensable to comfort in the climate of New England, where
+poor Mildred had lost her health. Kate Theory, ever since this event,
+had lived for her companion, and it was almost an inconvenience for her
+to think that she was attractive to Captain Benyon. It was as if she
+had shut up her house and was not in a position to entertain. So long as
+Mildred should live, her own life was suspended; if there should be
+any time afterwards, perhaps she would take it up again; but for the
+present, in answer to any knock at her door, she could only call down
+from one of her dusty windows that she was not at home. Was it really in
+these terms she should have to dismiss Captain Benyon? If Mildred said
+it was for her he came she must perhaps take upon herself such a duty;
+for, as we have seen, Mildred knew everything, and she must therefore be
+right She knew about the statues in the Museum, about the excavations at
+Pompeii, about the antique splendor of Magna Gr�cia. She always had some
+instructive volume on the table beside her sofa, and she had strength
+enough to hold the book for half an hour at a time. That was about the
+only strength she had now. The Neapolitan winters had been remarkably
+soft, but after the first month or two she had been obliged to give up
+her little walks in the garden. It lay beneath her window like a single
+enormous bouquet; as early as May, that year, the flowers were so dense.
+None of them, however, had a color so intense as the splendid blue of
+the bay, which filled up all the rest of the view. It would have looked
+painted, if you had not been able to see the little movement of the
+waves. Mildred Theory watched them by the hour, and the breathing crest
+of the volcano, on the other side of Naples, and the great sea-vision
+of Capri, on the horizon, changing its tint while her eyes rested there,
+and wondered what would become of her sister after she was gone. Now
+that Percival was married,--he was their only brother, and from one day
+to the other was to come down to Naples to show them his new wife, as
+yet a complete stranger, or revealed only in the few letters she had
+written them during her wedding tour,--now that Percival was to be quite
+taken up, poor Kate's situation would be much more grave. Mildred felt
+that she should be able to judge better, after she should have seen her
+sister-in-law, how much of a home Kate might expect to find with the
+pair; but even if Agnes should prove--well, more satisfactory than her
+letters, it was a wretched prospect for Kate,--this living as a mere
+appendage to happier people. Maiden aunts were very well, but being a
+maiden aunt was only a last resource, and Kate's first resources had not
+even been tried.
+
+Meanwhile the latter young lady wondered as well,--wondered in what book
+Mildred had read that Captain Benyon was in love with her. She admired
+him, she thought, but he didn't seem a man that would fall in love with
+one like that She could see that he was on his guard; he would n't throw
+himself away. He thought too much of himself, or at any rate he took
+too good care of himself,--in the manner of a man to whom something had
+happened which had given him a lesson. Of course what had happened was
+that his heart was buried somewhere,--in some woman's grave; he had
+loved some beautiful girl,--much more beautiful, Kate was sure, than
+she, who thought herself small and dark,--and the maiden had died, and
+his capacity to love had died with her. He loved her memory,--that was
+the only thing he would care for now. He was quiet, gentle, clever,
+humorous, and very kind in his manner; but if any one save Mildred had
+said to her that if he came three times a week to Posilippo, it was for
+anything but to pass his time (he had told them he didn't know another
+soul in Naples), she would have felt that this was simply the kind of
+thing--usually so idiotic--that people always thought it necessary to
+say. It was very easy for him to come; he had the big ship's boat, with
+nothing else to do; and what could be more delightful than to be rowed
+across the bay, under a bright awning, by four brown sailors with
+"Louisiana" in blue letters on their immaculate white shirts, and in gilt
+letters on their fluttering hat ribbons? The boat came to the steps of
+the garden of the _pension_, where the orange-trees hung over and made
+vague yellow balls shine back out of the water. Kate Theory knew all
+about that, for Captain Benyon had persuaded her to take a turn in the
+boat, and if they had only had another lady to go with them, he could
+have conveyed her to the ship, and shown her all over it It looked
+beautiful, just a little way off, with the American flag hanging loose
+in the Italian air. They would have another lady when Agnes should
+arrive; then Percival would remain with Mildred while they took this
+excursion. Mildred had stayed alone the day she went in the boat;
+she had insisted on it, and, of course it was really Mildred who had
+persuaded her; though now that Kate came to think of it, Captain Benyon
+had, in his quiet, waiting way--he turned out to be waiting long after
+you thought he had let a thing pass--said a good deal about the pleasure
+it would give him. Of course, everything would give pleasure to a man
+who was so bored. He was keeping the "Louisiana" at Naples, week after
+week, simply because these were the commodore's orders. There was no
+work to be done there, and his time was on his hands; but of course the
+commodore, who had gone to Constantinople with the two other ships, had
+to be obeyed to the letter, however mysterious his motives. It made no
+difference that he was a fantastic, grumbling, arbitrary old commodore;
+only a good while afterwards it occurred to Kate Theory that, for a
+reserved, correct man, Captain Benyon had given her a considerable
+proof of confidence, in speaking to her in these terms of his superior
+officer. If he looked at all hot when he arrived at the _pension_,
+she offered him a glass of cold "orangeade." Mildred thought this an
+unpleasant drink,--she called it messy; but Kate adored it, and Captain
+Benyon always accepted it.
+
+The day I speak of, to change the subject, she called her sister's
+attention to the extraordinary sharpness of a zigzagging cloud-shadow,
+on the tinted slope of Vesuvius; but Mildred only remarked in answer
+that she wished her sister would many the captain. It was in this
+familiar way that constant meditation led Miss Theory to speak of him;
+it shows how constantly she thought of him, for, in general, no one was
+more ceremonious than she, and the failure of her health had not caused
+her to relax any form that it was possible to keep up. There was a kind
+of slim erectness, even in the way she lay on her sofa; and she always
+received the doctor as if he were calling for the first time.
+
+"I had better wait till he asks me," Kate Theory said. "Dear Milly, if
+I were to do some of the things you wish me to do, I should shock you
+very much."
+
+"I wish he would marry you, then. You know there is very little time, if
+I wish to see it."
+
+"You will never see it, Mildred. I don't see why you should take so for
+granted that I would accept him."
+
+"You will never meet a man who has so few disagreeable qualities. He is
+probably not enormously rich. I don't know what is the pay of a captain
+in the navy--"
+
+"It's a relief to find there is something you don't know," Kate Theory
+broke in.
+
+"But when I am gone," her sister went on calmly, "when I am gone there
+will be plenty for both of you."
+
+The younger sister, at this, was silent for a moment; then she
+exclaimed, "Mildred, you may be out of health, but I don't see why you
+should be dreadful!"
+
+"You know that since we have been leading this life we have seen no
+one we liked better," said Milly. When she spoke of the life they were
+leading--there was always a soft resignation of regret and contempt in
+the allusion--she meant the southern winters, the foreign climates,
+the vain experiments, the lonely waitings, the wasted hours, the
+interminable rains, the bad food, the pottering, humbugging doctors,
+the damp _pensions_, the chance encounters, the fitful apparitions, of
+fellow-travellers.
+
+"Why should n't you speak for yourself alone? I am glad _you_ like him,
+Mildred."
+
+"If you don't like him, why do you give him orangeade?"
+
+At this inquiry Kate began to laugh, and her sister continued,--
+
+"Of course you are glad I like him, my dear. If I did n't like him, and
+you did, it would n't be satisfactory at all. I can imagine nothing more
+miserable; I should n't die in any sort of comfort."
+
+Kate Theory usually checked this sort of allusion--she was always too
+late--with a kiss; but on this occasion she added that it was a long
+time since Mildred had tormented her so much as she had done to-day.
+"You will make me hate him," she added.
+
+"Well, that proves you don't already," Milly rejoined; and it happened
+that almost at this moment they saw, in the golden afternoon, Captain
+Benyon's boat approaching the steps at the end of the garden. He came
+that day, and he came two days later, and he came yet once again after
+an interval equally brief, before Percival Theory arrived, with Mrs.
+Percival, from Borne. He seemed anxious to crowd into these few days, as
+he would have said, a good deal of intercourse with the two remarkably
+nice girls--or nice women, he hardly knew which to call them--whom in
+the course of a long, idle, rather tedious detention at Naples, he had
+discovered in the lovely suburb of Posilippo. It was the American consul
+who had put him into relation with them; the sisters had had to sign, in
+the consul's presence, some law-papers, transmitted to them by the man
+of business who looked after their little property in America, and the
+kindly functionary, taking advantage of the pretext (Captain Benyon
+happened to come into the consulate as he was starting, indulgently, to
+wait upon the ladies) to bring together "two parties" who, as he said,
+ought to appreciate each other, proposed to his fellow-officer in the
+service of the United States that he should go with him as witness
+of the little ceremony. He might, of course, take his clerk, but the
+captain would do much better; and he represented to Benyon that the Miss
+Theorys (singular name, wa' n't it?) suffered--he was sure--from a lack
+of society; also that one of them was very sick, that they were
+real pleasant and extraordinarily refined, and that the sight of a
+compatriot, literally draped, as it were, in the national banner,
+would cheer them up more than most anything, and give them a sense of
+protection. They had talked to the consul about Benyon's ship, which
+they could see from their windows, in the distance, at its anchorage.
+They were the only American ladies then at Naples,--the only residents,
+at least,--and the captain would n't be doing the polite thing unless he
+went to pay them his respects. Benyon felt afresh how little it was in
+his line to call upon strange women; he was not in the habit of hunting
+up female acquaintance, or of looking out for the soft emotions which
+the sex only can inspire. He had his reasons for this abstention, and
+he seldom relaxed it; but the consul appealed to him on rather strong
+grounds; and he suffered himself to be persuaded. He was far from
+regretting, during the first weeks at least, an act which was distinctly
+inconsistent with his great rule,--that of never exposing himself to the
+chance of seriously caring for an unmarried woman. He had been obliged
+to make this rule, and had adhered to it with some success. He was
+fond of women, but he was forced to restrict himself to superficial
+sentiments. There was no use tumbling into situations from which the
+only possible issue was a retreat The step he had taken with regard to
+poor Miss Theory and her delightful little sister was an exception on
+which at first he could only congratulate himself. That had been a happy
+idea of the ruminating old consul; it made Captain Benyon forgive
+him his hat, his boots, his shirtfront,--a costume which might be
+considered representative, and the effect of which was to make the
+observer turn with rapture to a half-naked lazzarone. On either side the
+acquaintance had helped the time to pass, and the hours he spent at
+the little _pension_ at Posilippo left a sweet--and by no means
+innutritive--taste behind.
+
+As the weeks went by his exception had grown to look a good deal like
+a rule; but he was able to remind himself that the path of retreat was
+always open to him. Moreover, if he should fall in love with the younger
+girl there would be no great harm, for Kate Theory was in love only with
+her sister, and it would matter very little to her whether he advanced
+or retreated. She was very attractive, or rather very attracting.
+Small, pale, attentive without rigidity, full of pretty curves and quick
+movements, she looked as if the habit of watching and serving had
+taken complete possession of her, and was literally a little sister of
+charity. Her thick black hair was pushed behind her ears, as if to help
+her to listen, and her clear brown eyes had the smile of a person
+too full of tact to cany a dull face to a sickbed. She spoke in an
+encouraging voice, and had soothing and unselfish habits. She was very
+pretty,--producing a cheerful effect of contrasted black and white, and
+dressed herself daintily, so that Mildred might have something agreeable
+to look at Benyon very soon perceived that there was a fund of good
+service in her. Her sister had it all now; but poor Miss Theory was
+fading fast, and then what would become of this precious little force?
+The answer to such a question that seemed most to the point was
+that it was none of his business. He was not sick,--at least not
+physically,--and he was not looking out for a nurse. Such a companion
+might be a luxury, but was not, as yet, a necessity: The welcome of the
+two ladies, at first, had been simple, and he scarcely knew what to call
+it but sweet; a bright, gentle friendliness remained the tone of their
+greeting. They evidently liked him to come,--they liked to see his big
+transatlantic ship hover about those gleaming coasts of exile. The fact
+of Miss Mildred being always stretched on her couch--in his successive
+visits to foreign waters Benyon had not unlearned (as why should he?)
+the pleasant American habit of using the lady's personal name--made
+their intimacy seem greater, their differences less; it was as if his
+hostesses had taken him into their confidence and he had been--as the
+consul would have said--of the same party. Knocking about the salt parts
+of the globe, with a few feet square on a rolling frigate for his only
+home, the pretty, flower-decked sitting-room of the quiet American
+sisters became, more than anything he had hitherto known, his interior.
+He had dreamed once of having an interior, but the dream had vanished in
+lurid smoke, and no such vision had come to him again. He had a feeling
+that the end of this was drawing nigh; he was sure that the advent of
+the strange brother, whose wife was certain to be disagreeable, would
+make a difference. That is why, as I have said, he came as often as
+possible the last week, after he had learned the day on which Percival
+Theory would arrive. The limits of the exception had been reached.
+
+He had been new to the young ladies at Posilippo, and there was no
+reason why they should say to each other that he was a very different
+man from the ingenuous youth who, ten years before, used to wander
+with Georgina Gressie down vistas of plank fences brushed over with the
+advertisements of quack medicines. It was natural he should be, and we,
+who know him, would have found that he had traversed the whole scale of
+alteration. There was nothing ingenuous in him now; he had the look of
+experience, of having been seasoned and hardened by the years.
+
+His face, his complexion, were the same; still smooth-shaven and slim,
+he always passed, at first, for a man scarcely out of his twenties. But
+his expression was old, and his talk was older still,--the talk of one
+who had seen much of the world (as indeed he had, to-day), and judged
+most things for himself, with a humorous scepticism which, whatever
+concessions it might make, superficially, for the sake of not offending
+(for instance) two remarkably nice American women, of the kind that had
+kept most of their illusions, left you with the conviction that the
+next minute it would go quickly back to its own standpoint There was a
+curious contradiction in him; he struck you as serious, and yet he could
+not be said to take things seriously. This was what made Kate Theory
+feel so sure that he had lost the object of his affections; and she
+said to herself that it must have been under circumstances of peculiar
+sadness, for that was, after all, a frequent accident, and was not
+usually thought, in itself, a sufficient stroke to make a man a cynic.
+This reflection, it may be added, was, on the young lady's part, just
+the least bit acrimonious. Captain Benyon was not a cynic in any sense
+in which he might have shocked an innocent mind; he kept his cynicism
+to himself, and was a very clever, courteous, attentive gentleman. If he
+was melancholy, you knew it chiefly by his jokes, for they were usually
+at his own expense; and if he was indifferent, it was all the more
+to his credit that he should have exerted himself to entertain his
+countrywomen.
+
+The last time he called before the arrival of the expected brother, he
+found Miss Theory alone, and sitting up, for a wonder, at her window.
+Kate had driven into Naples to give orders at the hotel for the
+reception of the travellers, who required accommodation more spacious
+than the villa at Posilippo (where the two sisters had the best rooms)
+could offer them; and the sick girl had taken advantage of her absence
+and of the pretext afforded by a day of delicious warmth, to transfer
+herself, for the first time in six months, to an arm-chair. She was
+practising, as she said, for the long carriage-journey to the north,
+where, in a quiet corner they knew of, on the Lago Maggiore, her summer
+was to be spent. Eaymond Benyon remarked to her that she had evidently
+turned the corner and was going to get well, and this gave her a chance
+to say various things that were on her mind. She had many things on her
+mind, poor Mildred Theory, so caged and restless, and yet so resigned
+and patient as she was; with a clear, quick spirit, in the most perfect
+health, ever reaching forward, to the end of its tense little chain,
+from her wasted and suffering body; and, in the course of the perfect
+summer afternoon, as she sat there, exhilarated by the success of her
+effort to get up, and by her comfortable opportunity, she took her
+friendly visitor into the confidence of most of her anxieties. She told
+him, very promptly and positively, that she was not going to get well
+at all, that she had probably not more than ten months yet to live, and
+that he would oblige her very much by not forcing her to waste any more
+breath in contradicting him on that point. Of course she could n't talk
+much; therefore, she wished to say to him only things that he would
+not hear from any one else. Such, for instance, was her present
+secret--Katie's and hers--the secret of their fearing so much that they
+should n't like Percival's wife, who was not from Boston, but from New
+York. Naturally, that by itself would be nothing, but from what they
+had heard of her set--this subject had been explored by their
+correspondents--they were rather nervous, nervous to the point of not
+being in the least reassured by the fact that the young lady would bring
+Percival a fortune. The fortune was a matter of course, for that was
+just what they had heard about Agnes's circle--that the stamp of money
+was on all their thoughts and doings. They were very rich and very new
+and very splashing, and evidently had very little in common with the two
+Miss Theorys, who, moreover, if the truth must be told (and this was a
+great secret), did not care much for the letters their sister-in-law had
+hitherto addressed them. She had been at a French boarding-school in
+New York, and yet (and this was the greatest secret of all) she wrote
+to them that she had performed a part of the journey through France in
+_diligance!_
+
+Of course, they would see the next day; Miss Mildred was sure she should
+know in a moment whether Agnes would like them. She could never have
+told him all this if her sister had been there, and Captain Benyon must
+promise never to reveal to Kate how she had chattered. Kate thought
+always that they must hide everything, and that even if Agnes should be
+a dreadful disappointment they must never let any one guess it And yet
+Kate was just the one who would suffer, in the coming years, after she
+herself had gone. Their brother had been everything to them, but now
+it would all be different Of course it was not to be expected that he
+should have remained a bachelor for their sake; she only wished he had
+waited till she was dead and Kate was married One of these events,
+it was true, was much less sure than the other; Kate might never
+marry,--much as she wished she would! She was quite morbidly unselfish,
+and did n't think she had a right to have anything of her own--not even
+a husband. Miss Mildred talked a good while about Kate, and it never
+occurred to her that she might bore Captain Benyon. She did n't, in
+point of fact; he had none of the trouble of wondering why this poor,
+sick, worried lady was trying to push her sister down his throat Their
+peculiar situation made everything natural, and the tone she took with
+him now seemed only what their pleasant relation for the last three
+months led up to. Moreover, he had an excellent reason for not being
+bored: the fact, namely, that after all, with regard to her sister,
+Miss Mildred appeared to him to keep back more than she uttered. She
+didn't tell him the great thing,--she had nothing to say as to what that
+charming girl thought of Eaymond Benyon. The effect of their interview,
+indeed, was to make him shrink from knowing, and he felt that the right
+thing for him would be to get back into his boat, which was waiting at
+the garden steps, before Kate Theory should return from Naples. It came
+over him, as he sat there, that he was far too interested in knowing
+what this young lady thought of him. She might think what she pleased;
+it could make no difference to him. The best opinion in the world--if it
+looked out at him from her tender eyes--would not make him a whit more
+free or more happy. Women of that sort were not for him, women whom one
+could not see familiarly without falling in love with them, and whom it
+was no use to fall in love with unless one was ready to marry them. The
+light of the summer afternoon, and of Miss Mildred's pure spirit, seemed
+suddenly to flood the whole subject. He saw that he was in danger, and
+he had long since made up his mind that from this particular peril
+it was not only necessary but honorable to flee. He took leave of his
+hostess before her sister reappeared, and had the courage even to say to
+her that he would not come back often after that; they would be so much
+occupied by their brother and his wife! As he moved across the glassy
+bay, to the rhythm of the oars, he wished either that the sisters would
+leave Naples or that his confounded commodore would send for him.
+
+When Kate returned from her errand, ten minutes later, Milly told her
+of the captain's visit, and added that she had never seen anything so
+sudden as the way he left her. "He would n't wait for you, my dear,
+and he said he thought it more than likely that he should never see us
+again. It is as if he thought you were going to die too!"
+
+"Is his ship called away?" Kate Theory asked.
+
+"He did n't tell me so; he said we should be so busy with Percival and
+Agnes."
+
+"He has got tired of us,--that's all. There's nothing wonderful in that;
+I knew he would."
+
+Mildred said nothing for a moment; she was watching her sister, who was
+very attentively arranging some flowers. "Yes, of course, we are very
+dull, and he is like everybody else."
+
+"I thought you thought he was so wonderful," said Kate, "and so fond of
+us."
+
+"So he is; I am surer of that than ever. That's why he went away so
+abruptly."
+
+Kate looked at her sister now. "I don't understand."
+
+"Neither do I, darling. But you will, one of these days."
+
+"How if he never comes back?"
+
+"Oh, he will--after a while--when I am gone. Then he will explain; that,
+at least, is clear to me."
+
+"My poor precious, as if I cared!" Kate Theory exclaimed, smiling as she
+distributed her flowers. She carried them to the window, to place them
+near her sister, and here she paused a moment, her eye caught by an
+object, far out in the bay, with which she was not unfamiliar. Mildred
+noticed its momentary look, and followed its direction.
+
+"It's the captain's gig going back to the ship," Milly said. "It's so
+still one can almost hear the oars."
+
+Kate Theory turned away, with a sudden, strange violence, a movement and
+exclamation which, the very next minute, as she became conscious of what
+she had said,--and, still more, of what she felt--smote her own
+heart (as it flushed her face) with surprise, and with the force of a
+revelation: "I wish it would sink him to the bottom of the sea!"
+
+Her sister stared, then caught her by the dress, as she passed from her,
+drawing her back with a weak hand. "Oh, my dearest, my poorest!" And she
+pulled Kate down and down toward her, so that the girl had nothing for
+it but to sink on her knees and bury her face in Mildred's lap. If that
+ingenious invalid did not know everything now, she knew a great deal.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Mrs. Percival proved very pretty. It is more gracious to begin with this
+declaration, instead of saying that, in the first place, she proved very
+silly. It took a long day to arrive at the end of her silliness, and the
+two ladies at Posilippo, even after a week had passed, suspected that
+they had only skirted its edges. Kate Theory had not spent half an hour
+in her company before she gave a little private sigh of relief; she felt
+that a situation which had promised to be embarrassing was now quite
+clear, was even of a primitive simplicity. She would spend with her
+sister-in-law, in the coming time, one week in the year; that was all
+that was mortally possible. It was a blessing that one could see exactly
+what she was, for in that way the question settled itself. It would have
+been much more tiresome if Agnes had been a little less obvious; then
+she would have had to hesitate and consider and weigh one thing against
+another. She was pretty and silly, as distinctly as an orange is yellow
+and round; and Kate Theory would as soon have thought of looking to her
+to give interest to the future as she would have thought of looking to
+an orange to impart solidity to the prospect of dinner. Mrs. Percival
+travelled in the hope of meeting her American acquaintance, or of making
+acquaintance with such Americans as she did meet, and for the purpose
+of buying mementos for her relations. She was perpetually adding to her
+store of articles in tortoise-shell, in mother-of-pearl, in olive-wood,
+in ivory, in filigree, in tartan lacquer, in mosaic; and she had a
+collection of Roman scarfs and Venetian beads, which she looked over
+exhaustively every night before she went to bed. Her conversation
+bore mainly upon the manner in which she intended to dispose of these
+accumulations. She was constantly changing about, among each other, the
+persons to whom they were respectively to be offered. At Borne one of
+the first things she said to her husband after entering the Coliseum had
+been: "I guess I will give the ivory work-box to Bessie and the Roman
+pearls to Aunt Harriet!" She was always hanging over the travellers'
+book at the hotel; she had it brought up to her, with a cup of
+chocolate, as soon as she arrived. She searched its pages for the
+magical name of New York, and she indulged in infinite conjecture as to
+who the people were--the name was sometimes only a partial cue--who had
+inscribed it there. What she most missed in Europe, and what she most
+enjoyed, were the New Yorkers; when she met them she talked about the
+people in their native city who had "moved" and the streets they had
+moved to. "Oh, yes, the Drapers are going up town, to Twenty-fourth
+Street, and the Vanderdeckens are going to be in Twenty-third Street,
+right back of them. My uncle, Henry Piatt, thinks of building round
+there." Mrs. Percival Theory was capable of repeating statements like
+these thirty times over,--of lingering on them for hours. She talked
+largely of herself, of her uncles and aunts, of her clothes--past,
+present, and future. These articles, in especial, filled her horizon;
+she considered them with a complacency which might have led you to
+suppose that she had invented the custom of draping the human form. Her
+main point of contact with Naples was the purchase of coral; and all the
+while she was there the word "set"--she used it as if every one would
+understand--fell with its little, flat, common sound upon the ears of
+her sisters-in-law, who had no sets of anything. She cared little for
+pictures and mountains; Alps and Apennines were not productive of
+New Yorkers, and it was difficult to take an interest in Madonnas who
+flourished at periods when, apparently, there were no fashions, or, at
+any rate, no trimmings.
+
+I speak here not only of the impression she made upon her husband's
+anxious sisters, but of the judgment passed on her (he went so far
+as that, though it was not obvious how it mattered to him) by Raymond
+Benyon. And this brings me at a jump (I confess it's a very small one)
+to the fact that he did, after all, go back to Posilippo. He stayed away
+for nine days, and at the end of this time Percival Theory called upon
+him, to thank him for the civility he had shown his kinswomen. He went
+to this gentleman's hotel, to return his visit, and there he found Miss
+Kate, in her brother's sitting-room. She had come in by appointment from
+the villa, and was going with the others to seek the royal palace, which
+she had not yet had an opportunity to inspect It was proposed (not by
+Kate), and presently arranged, that Captain Benyon should go with
+them, and he accordingly walked over marble floors for half an hour,
+exchanging conscious commonplaces with the woman he loved. For
+this truth had rounded itself during those nine days of absence; he
+discovered that there was nothing particularly sweet in his life when
+once Kate Theory had been excluded from it He had stayed away to keep
+himself from falling in love with her; but this expedient was in itself
+illuminating, for he perceived that, according to the vulgar adage, he
+was locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen. As he
+paced the deck of his ship and looked toward Posilippo, his tenderness
+crystallized; the thick, smoky flame of a sentiment that knew itself
+forbidden and was angry at the knowledge, now danced upon the fuel of
+his good resolutions. The latter, it must be said, resisted, declined
+to be consumed. He determined that he would see Kate Theory again, for
+a time, just sufficient to bid her good-by, and to add a little
+explanation. He thought of his explanation very lovingly, but it may
+not strike the reader as a happy inspiration. To part from her dryly,
+abruptly, without an allusion to what he might have said if everything
+had been different,--that would be wisdom, of course, that would be
+virtue, that would be the line of a practical man, of a man who kept
+himself well in hand. But it would be virtue terribly unrewarded,--it
+would be virtue too austere for a person who sometimes flattered himself
+that he had taught himself stoicism. The minor luxury tempted him
+irresistibly, since the larger--that of happy love--was denied him; the
+luxury of letting the girl know that it would not be an accident--oh,
+not at all--that they should never meet again. She might easily think it
+was, and thinking it was would doubtless do her no harm. But this would
+n't give him his pleasure,--the Platonic satisfaction of expressing to
+her at the same time his belief that they might have made each other
+happy, and the necessity of his renunciation. That, probably, wouldn't
+hurt her either, for she had given him no proof whatever that she cared
+for him. The nearest approach to it was the way she walked beside him
+now, sweet and silent, without the least reference to his not having
+been back to the villa. The place was cool and dusky, the blinds were
+drawn, to keep out the light and noise, and the little party wandered
+through the high saloons, where precious marbles and the gleam of
+gilding and satin made reflections in the rich dimness. Here and there
+the cicerone, in slippers, with Neapolitan familiarity, threw open a
+shutter to show off a picture on a tapestry. He strolled in front with
+Percival Theory and his wife, while this lady, drooping silently from
+her husband's arm as they passed, felt the stuff of the curtains and
+the sofas. When he caught her in these experiments, the cicerone, in
+expressive deprecation, clasped his hands and lifted his eyebrows;
+whereupon Mrs. Theory exclaimed to her husband, "Oh, bother his old
+king!" It was not striking to Captain Benyon why Percival Theory had
+married the niece of Mr. Henry Piatt. He was less interesting than his
+sisters,--a smooth, cool, correct young man, who frequently took out
+a pencil and did a little arithmetic on the back of a letter. He
+sometimes, in spite of his correctness, chewed a toothpick, and he
+missed the American papers, which he used to ask for in the most
+unlikely places. He was a Bostonian converted to New York; a very
+special type.
+
+"Is it settled when you leave Naples?" Benyon asked of Kate Theory.
+
+"I think so; on the twenty-fourth. My brother has been very kind; he
+has lent us his carriage, which is a large one, so that Mildred can lie
+down. He and Agnes will take another; but, of course, we shall travel
+together."
+
+"I wish to Heaven I were going with you?" Captain Benyon said. He had
+given her the opportunity to respond, but she did not take it; she
+merely remarked, with a vague laugh, that of course he couldn't take his
+ship over the Apennines. "Yes, there is always my ship," he went on. "I
+am afraid that in future it will carry me far away from you."
+
+They were alone in one of the royal apartments; their companions had
+passed, in advance of them, into the adjoining room. Benyon and his
+fellow-visitor had paused beneath one of the immense chandeliers of
+glass, which in the clear, colored gloom (through it one felt the strong
+outer light of Italy beating in) suspended its twinkling drops from the
+decorated vault. They looked round them confusedly, made shy for the
+moment by Benyon's having struck a note more serious than any that had
+hitherto souuded between them, looked at the sparse furniture, draped
+in white overalls, at the scagiiola floor, in which the great cluster of
+crystal pendants seemed to shine again.
+
+"You are master of your ship. Can't you sail it as you like?" Kate
+Theory asked, with a smile.
+
+"I am not master of anything. There is not a man in the world less free.
+I am a slave. I am a victim."
+
+She looked at him with kind eyes; something in his voice suddenly made
+her put away all thought of the defensive airs that a girl, in certain
+situations, is expected to assume. She perceived that he wanted to make
+her understand something, and now her only wish was to help him to say
+it. "You are not happy," she murmured, simply, her voice dying away in a
+kind of wonderment at this reality.
+
+The gentle touch of the words--it was as if her hand had stroked his
+cheek--seemed to him the sweetest thing he had ever known. "No, I am not
+happy, because I am not free. If I were--if I were, I would give up my
+ship. I would give up everything, to follow you. I can't explain; that
+is part of the hardness of it. I only want you to know it,--that if
+certain things were different, if everything was different, I might tell
+you that I believe I should have a right to speak to you. Perhaps some
+day it will change; but probably then it will be too late. Meanwhile, I
+have no right of any kind. I don't want to trouble you, and I don't ask
+of you--anything! It is only to have spoken just once. I don't make
+you understand, of course. I am afraid I seem to you rather a
+brute,--perhaps even a humbug. Don't think of it now,--don't try to
+understand. But some day, in the future, remember what I have said to
+you, and how we stood here, in this strange old place, alone! Perhaps it
+will give you a little pleasure."
+
+Kate Theory began by listening to him with visible eagerness; but in a
+moment she turned away her eyes. "I am very sorry for you," she said,
+gravely.
+
+"Then you do understand enough?"
+
+"I shall think of what you have said, in the future."
+
+Benyon's lips formed the beginning of a word of tenderness, which he
+instantly suppressed; and in a different tone, with a bitter smile and a
+sad shake of the head, raising his arms a moment and letting them fall,
+he said: "It won't hurt any one, your remembering this!"
+
+"I don't know whom you mean." And the girl, abruptly, began to walk to
+the end of the room. He made no attempt to tell her whom he meant, and
+they proceeded together in silence till they overtook their companions.
+
+There were several pictures in the neighboring room, and Percival Theory
+and his wife had stopped to look at one of them, of which the cicerone
+announced the title and the authorship as Benyon came up. It was a
+modern portrait of a Bourbon princess, a woman young, fair, handsome,
+covered with jewels. Mrs. Percival appeared to be more struck with it
+than with anything the palace had yet offered to her sight, while her
+sister-in-law walked to the window, which the custodian had opened, to
+look out into the garden. Benyon noticed this; he was conscious that
+he had given the girl something to reflect upon, and his ears burned a
+little as he stood beside Mrs. Percival and looked up, mechanically, at
+the royal lady. He already repented a little of what he had said, for,
+after all, what was the use? And he hoped the others wouldn't observe
+that he had been making love.
+
+"Gracious, Percival! Do you see who she looks like?" Mrs. Theory said to
+her husband.
+
+"She looks like a woman who has run up a big bill at Tiffany's," this
+gentleman answered.
+
+"She looks like my sister-in-law; the eyes, the mouth, the way the
+hair's done,--the whole thing."
+
+"Which do you mean? You have got about a dozen."
+
+"Why, Georgina, of course,--Georgina Roy. She's awfully like."
+
+"Do you call _her_ your sister-in-law?" Percival Theory asked. "You must
+want very much to claim her."
+
+"Well, she's handsome enough. You have got to invent some new name,
+then. Captain Benyon, what do you call your brother-in-law's second
+wife?" Mrs. Percival continued, turning to her neighbor, who still stood
+staring at the portrait. At first he had looked without seeing; then
+sight, and hearing as well, became quick. They were suddenly peopled
+with thrilling recognitions. The Bourbon princess--the eyes, the mouth,
+the way the hair was done; these things took on an identity, and the
+gaze of the painted face seemed to fasten itself to his own. But who in
+the world was Georgina Roy, and what was this talk about sisters-in-law?
+He turned to the little lady at his side a countenance unexpectedly
+puzzled by the problem she had airily presented to him.
+
+"Your brother-in-law's second wife? That's rather complicated."
+
+"Well, of course, he need n't have married again?" said Mrs. Percival,
+with a small sigh.
+
+"Whom did he marry?" asked Benyon, staring.
+
+Percival Theory had turned away. "Oh, if you are going into her
+relationships!" he murmured, and joined his sister at the brilliant
+window, through which, from the distance, the many-voiced uproar of
+Naples came in.
+
+"He married first my sister Dora, and she died five years ago. Then he
+married _her_," and Mrs. Percival nodded at the princess.
+
+Benyon's eyes went back to the portrait; he could see what she meant--it
+stared out at him. "Her? Georgina?"
+
+"Georgina Gressie. Gracious, do you know her?"
+
+It was very distinct--that answer of Mrs. Percival's, and the question
+that followed it as well. But he had the resource of the picture; he
+could look at it, seem to take it very seriously, though it danced up
+and down before him. He felt that he was turning red, then he felt that
+he was turning pale. "The brazen impudence!" That was the way he
+could speak to himself now of the woman he had once loved, and whom he
+afterwards hated, till this had died out, too. Then the wonder of it was
+lost in the quickly growing sense that it would make a difference
+for him,--a great difference. Exactly what, he didn't see yet; only a
+difference that swelled and swelled as he thought of it, and caught up,
+in its expansion, the girl who stood behind him so quietly, looking into
+the Italian garden.
+
+The custodian drew Mrs. Percival away to show her another princess,
+before Benyon answered her last inquiry. This gave him time to recover
+from his first impulse, which had been to answer it with a negative;
+he saw in a moment that an admission of his acquaintance with Mrs. Roy
+(Mrs. Roy!--it was prodigious!) was necessarily helping him to learn
+more. Besides, it needn't be compromising. Very likely Mrs. Percival
+would hear one day that he had once wanted to marry her. So, when he
+joined his companions a minute later he remarked that he had known Miss
+Gressie years before, and had even admired her considerably, but had
+lost sight of her entirely in later days. She had been a great beauty,
+and it was a wonder that she had not married earlier. Five years ago,
+was it? No, it was only two. He had been going to say that in so long a
+time it would have been singular he should not have heard of it. He had
+been away from New York for ages; but one always heard of marriages and
+deaths. This was a proof, though two years was rather long. He led Mrs.
+Percival insidiously into a further room, in advance of the others,
+to whom the cicerone returned. She was delighted to talk about her
+"connections," and she supplied him with every detail He could trust
+himself now; his self-possession was complete, or, so far as it was
+wanting, the fault was that of a sudden gayety which he could not, on
+the spot, have accounted for. Of course it was not very flattering to
+them--Mrs. Percivals own people--that poor Dora's husband should have
+consoled himself; but men always did it (talk of widows!) and he
+had chosen a girl who was--well, very fine-looking, and the sort of
+successor to Dora that they needn't be ashamed of. She had been awfully
+admired, and no one had understood why she had waited so long to marry.
+She had had some affair as a girl,--an engagement to an officer in the
+army,--and the man had jilted her, or they had quarrelled, or something
+or other. She was almost an old maid,--well, she was thirty, or very
+nearly,--but she had done something good now. She was handsomer than
+ever, and tremendously stylish. William Roy had one of the biggest
+incomes in the city, and he was quite affectionate. He had been
+intensely fond of Dora--he often spoke of her still, at least to her
+own relations; and her portrait, the last time Mrs. Percival was in his
+house (it was at a party, after his marriage to Miss Gressie), was still
+in the front parlor.. Perhaps by this time he had had it moved to the
+back; but she was sure he would keep it somewhere, anyway. Poor Dora
+had had no children; but Georgina was making that all right,--she had
+a beautiful boy. Mrs. Percival had what she would have called quite a
+pleasant chat with Captain Benyon about Mrs. Roy. Perhaps _he_ was the
+officer--she never thought of that? He was sure he had never jilted her?
+And he had never quarrelled with a lady? Well, he must be different from
+most men.
+
+He certainly had the air of being so, before he parted that afternoon
+with Kate Theory. This young lady, at least, was free to think him
+wanting in that consistency which is supposed to be a distinctively
+masculine virtue. An hour before, he had taken an eternal farewell
+of her, and now he was alluding to future meetings, to future visits,
+proposing that, with her sister-in-law, she should appoint an early day
+for coming to see the "Louisiana." She had supposed she understood him,
+but it would appear now that she had not understood him at all. His
+manner had changed, too. More and more off his guard, Raymond Benyon
+was not aware how much more hopeful an expression it gave him, his
+irresistible sense that somehow or other this extraordinary proceeding
+of his wife's would set him free. Kate Theory felt rather weary and
+mystified,--all the more for knowing that henceforth Captain Benyon's
+variations would be the most important thing in life for her.
+
+This officer, on his ship in the bay, lingered very late on deck that
+night,--lingered there, indeed, under the warm southern sky, in which
+the stars glittered with a hot, red light, until the early dawn began to
+show. He smoked cigar after cigar, he walked up and down by the hour, he
+was agitated by a thousand reflections, he repeated to himself that
+it made a difference,--an immense difference; but the pink light had
+deepened in the east before he had discovered in what the diversity
+consisted. By that time he saw it clearly,--it consisted in Georgina's
+being in his power now, in place of his being in hers. He laughed as he
+sat there alone in the darkness at the thought of what she had done. It
+had occurred to him more than once that she would do it,--he believed
+her capable of anything; but the accomplished fact had a freshness of
+comicality. He thought of Mr. William Roy, of his big income, of his
+being "quite affectionate," of his blooming son and heir, of his having
+found such a worthy successor to poor Mrs. Dora. He wondered whether
+Georgina had happened to mention to him that she had a husband living,
+but was strongly of the belief that she had not. Why should she, after
+all? She had neglected to mention it to so many others. He had thought
+he knew her, in so many years,--that he had nothing more to learn about
+her; but this ripe stroke revived his sense of her audacity. Of course
+it was what she had been waiting for, and if she had not done it sooner
+it was because she had hoped he would be lost at sea in one of his long
+cruises and relieve her of the necessity of a crime. How she must hate
+him to-day for not having been lost, for being alive, for continuing to
+put her in the wrong! Much as she hated him, however, his own loathing
+was at least a match for hers. She had done him the foulest of
+wrongs,--she had ravaged his life. That he should ever detest in this
+degree a woman whom he had once loved as he loved her, he would not have
+thought possible in his innocent younger years. But he would not have
+thought it possible then that a woman should be such a cold-blooded
+devil as she had been. His love had perished in his rage,--his blinding,
+impotent rage at finding that he had been duped, and measuring his
+impotence. When he learned, years before, from Mrs. Portico, what she
+had done with her baby, of whose entrance into life she herself had
+given him no intimation, he felt that he was face to face with a full
+revelation of her nature. Before that it had puzzled him; it had amazed
+him; his relations with her were bewildering, stupefying. But when,
+after obtaining, with difficulty and delay, a leave of absence from
+Government, and betaking himself to Italy to look for the child and
+assume possession of it, he had encountered absolute failure and
+defeat,--then the case presented itself to him more simply. He perceived
+that he had mated himself with a creature who just happened to be
+a monster, a human exception altogether. That was what he could n't
+pardon--her conduct about the child; never, never, never! To him she
+might have done what she chose,--dropped him, pushed him out into
+eternal cold, with his hands fast tied,--and he would have accepted
+it, excused her almost, admitted that it had been his business to mind
+better what he was about. But she had tortured him through the poor
+little irrecoverable son whom he had never seen, through the heart
+and the vitals that she had not herself, and that he had to have, poor
+wretch, for both of them!
+
+All his efforts for years had been to forget these horrible months, and
+he had cut himself off from them so that they seemed at times to belong
+to the life of another person. But to-night he lived them over again;
+he retraced the different gradations of darkness through which he had
+passed, from the moment, so soon after his extraordinary marriage, when
+it came over him that she already repented, and meant, if possible, to
+elude all her obligations. This was the moment when he saw why she had
+reserved herself--in the strange vow she extracted from him--an
+open door for retreat; the moment, too, when her having had such an
+inspiration (in the midst of her momentary good faith, if good faith it
+had ever been) struck him as a proof of her essential depravity. What he
+had tried to forget came back to him: the child that was not his child
+produced for him when he fell upon that squalid nest of peasants in
+the Genoese country; and then the confessions, retractations,
+contradictions, lies, terrors, threats, and general bottomless, baffling
+baseness of every one in the place. The child was gone; that had been
+the only definite thing. The woman who had taken it to nurse had a
+dozen different stories,--her husband had as many,--and every one in the
+village had a hundred more. Georgina had been sending money,--she had
+managed, apparently, to send a good deal,--and the whole country seemed
+to have been living on it and making merry. At one moment the baby
+had died and received a most expensive burial; at another he had been
+intrusted (for more healthy air, Santissima Madonna!) to the woman's
+cousin in another village. According to a version, which for a day or
+two Benyon had inclined to think the least false, he had been taken by
+the cousin (for his beauty's sake) to Genoa (when she went for the first
+time in her life to the town to see her daughter in service there), and
+had been confided for a few hours to a third woman, who was to keep him
+while the cousin walked about the streets, but who, having no child of
+her own, took such a fancy to him that she refused to give him up, and
+a few days later left the place (she was a Pisana) never to be heard
+of more. The cousin had forgotten her name,--it had happened six months
+before. Benyon spent a year looking up and down Italy for his child,
+and inspecting hundreds of swaddled infants, impenetrable candidates for
+recognition. Of course he could only get further and further from real
+knowledge, and his search was arrested by the conviction that it was
+making him mad. He set his teeth and made up his mind (or tried to) that
+the baby had died in the hands of its nurse. This was, after all, much
+the likeliest supposition, and the woman had maintained it, in the hope
+of being rewarded for her candor, quite as often as she had asseverated
+that it was still, somewhere, alive, in the hope of being remunerated
+for her good news. It may be imagined with what sentiments toward his
+wife Benyon had emerged from this episode. To-night his memory went
+further back,--back to the beginning and to the days when he had had
+to ask himself, with all the crudity of his first surprise, what in the
+name of wantonness she had wished to do with him. The answer to
+this speculation was so old,--it had dropped so ont of the line of
+recurrence,--that it was now almost new again. Moreover, it was only
+approximate, for, as I have already said, he could comprehend such
+conduct as little at the end as at the beginning. She had found herself
+on a slope which her nature forced her to descend to the bottom. She did
+him the honor of wishing to enjoy his society, and she did herself
+the honor of thinking that their intimacy--however brief--must have a
+certain consecration. She felt that, with him, after his promise (he
+would have made any promise to lead her on), she was secure,--secure
+as she had proved to be, secure as she must think herself now. That
+security had helped her to ask herself, after the first flush of passion
+was over, and her native, her twice-inherited worldliness had bad time
+to open its eyes again, why she should keep faith with a man whose
+deficiencies (as a husband before the world--another affair) had been
+so scientifically exposed to her by her parents. So she had simply
+determined not to keep faith; and her determination, at least, she did
+keep.
+
+By the time Benyon turned in he had satisfied himself, as I say,
+that Georgina was now in his power; and this seemed to him such an
+improvement in his situation that he allowed himself (for the next ten
+days) a license which made Kate Theory almost as happy as it made her
+sister, though she pretended to understand it far less. Mildred sank to
+her rest, or rose to fuller comprehensions, within the year, in the Isle
+of Wight, and Captain Benyon, who had never written so many letters as
+since they left Naples, sailed westward about the same time as the sweet
+survivor. For the "Louisiana" at last was ordered home.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+Certainly, I will see you if you come, and you may appoint any day or
+hour you like. I should have seen you with pleasure any time these last
+years. Why should we not be friends, as we used to be? Perhaps we shall
+be yet. I say "perhaps" only, on purpose,--because your note is rather
+vague about your state of mind. Don't come with any idea about making me
+nervous or uncomfortable. I am not nervous by nature, thank Heaven,
+and I won't--I positively won't (do you hear, dear Captain Benyon?)--be
+uncomfortable. I have been so (it served me right) for years and years;
+but I am very happy now. To remain so is the very definite intention of,
+yours ever,
+
+Georgina Roy.
+
+
+This was the answer Benyon received to a short letter that he despatched
+to Mrs. Roy after his return to America. It was not till he had been
+there some weeks that he wrote to her. He had been occupied in various
+ways: he had had to look after his ship; he had had to report at
+Washington; he had spent a fortnight with his mother at Portsmouth, N.
+H.; and he had paid a visit to Kate Theory in Boston. She herself was
+paying visits, she was staying with various relatives and friends. She
+had more color--it was very delicately rosy--than she had had of old, in
+spite of her black dress; and the effect of looking at him seemed to him
+to make her eyes grow still prettier. Though sisterless now, she was not
+without duties, and Benyon could easily see that life would press hard
+on her unless some one should interfere. Every one regarded her as
+just the person to do certain things. Every one thought she could do
+everything, because she had nothing else to do. She used to read to the
+blind, and, more onerously, to the deaf. She looked after other people's
+children while the parents attended anti-slavery conventions.
+
+She was coming to New York later to spend a week at her brother's, but
+beyond this she didn't know what she should do. Benyon felt it to be
+awkward that he should not be able, just now, to tell her; and this
+had much to do with his coming to the point, for he accused himself of
+having rather hung fire. Coming to the point, for Benyon, meant writing
+a note to Mrs. Roy (as he must call her), in which he asked whether she
+would see him if he should present himself. The missive was short; it
+contained, in addition to what I have noted, little more than the remark
+that he had something of importance to say to her. Her reply, which we
+have just read, was prompt. Benyon designated an hour, and the next
+day rang the doorbell of her big modern house, whose polished windows
+seemed to shine defiance at him.
+
+As he stood on the steps, looking up and down the straight vista of the
+Fifth Avenue, he perceived that he was trembling a little, that _he_
+was nervous, if she was not. He was ashamed of his agitation, and he
+addressed himself a very stern reprimand. Afterwards he saw that what
+had made him nervous was not any doubt of the goodness of his cause,
+but his revived sense (as he drew near her) of his wife's hardness,--her
+capacity for insolence. He might only break himself against that, and
+the prospect made him feel helpless. She kept him waiting for a long
+time after he had been introduced; and as he walked up and down her
+drawing-room, an immense, florid, expensive apartment, covered with
+blue satin, gilding, mirrors and bad frescos, it came over him as a
+certainty that her delay was calculated. She wished to annoy him, to
+weary him; she was as ungenerous as she was unscrupulous. It never
+occurred to him that in spite of the bold words of her note, she, too,
+might be in a tremor, and if any one in their secret bad suggested that
+she was afraid to meet him, he would have laughed at this idea. This
+was of bad omen for the success of his errand; for it showed that he
+recognized the ground of her presumption,--his having the superstition
+of old promises. By the time she appeared, he was flushed,--very angry.
+She closed the door behind her, and stood there looking at him, with the
+width of the room between them.
+
+The first emotion her presence excited was a quick sense of the strange
+fact that, after all these years of loneliness, such a magnificent
+person should be his wife. For she was magnificent, in the maturity of
+her beauty, her head erect, her complexion splendid, her auburn tresses
+undimmed, a certain plenitude in her very glance. He saw in a moment
+that she wished to seem to him beautiful, she had endeavored to dress
+herself to the best effect. Perhaps, after all, it was only for this she
+had delayed; she wished to give herself every possible touch. For some
+moments they said nothing; they had not stood face to face for nearly
+ten years, and they met now as adversaries. No two persons could
+possibly be more interested in taking each other's measure. It scarcely
+belonged to Georgina, however, to have too much the air of timidity;
+and after a moment, satisfied, apparently, that she was not to receive a
+broadside, she advanced, slowly rubbing her jewelled hands and smiling.
+He wondered why she should smile, what thought was in her mind. His
+impressions followed each other with extraordinary quickness of pulse,
+and now he saw, in addition to what he had already perceived, that she
+was waiting to take her cue,--she had determined on no definite line.
+There was nothing definite about her but her courage; the rest would
+depend upon him. As for her courage, it seemed to glow in the beauty
+which grew greater as she came nearer, with her eyes on his and her
+fixed smile; to be expressed in the very perfume that accompanied her
+steps. By this time he had got still a further impression, and it was
+the strangest of all. She was ready for anything, she was capable of
+anything, she wished to surprise him with her beauty, to remind him that
+it belonged, after all, at the bottom of everything, to him. She was
+ready to bribe him, if bribing should be necessary. She had carried on
+an intrigue before she was twenty; it would be more, rather than less,
+easy for her, now that she was thirty. All this and more was in her
+cold, living eyes, as in the prolonged silence they engaged themselves
+with his; but I must not dwell upon it, for reasons extraneous to the
+remarkable fact She was a truly amazing creature.
+
+"Raymond!" she said, in a low voice, a voice which might represent
+either a vague greeting or an appeal.
+
+He took no heed of the exclamation, but asked her why she had
+deliberately kept him waiting,--as if she had not made a fool enough of
+him already. She could n't suppose it was for his pleasure he had come
+into the house.
+
+She hesitated a moment,--still with her smile. "I must tell you I have
+a son,--the dearest little boy. His nurse happened to be engaged for the
+moment, and I had to watch him. I am more devoted to him than you might
+suppose."
+
+He fell back from her a few steps. "I wonder if you are insane," he
+murmured.
+
+"To allude to my child? Why do you ask me such questions then? I tell
+you the simple truth. I take every care of this one. I am older and
+wiser. The other one was a complete mistake; he had no right to exist."
+
+"Why didn't you kill him then with your own hands, instead of that
+torture?"
+
+"Why did n't I kill myself? That question would be more to the point You
+are looking wonderfully well," she broke off in another tone; "had n't
+we better sit down?"
+
+"I did n't come here for the advantage of conversation," Benyon
+answered. And he was going on, but she interrupted him--
+
+"You came to say something dreadful, very likely; though I hoped you
+would see it was better not But just tell me this before you begin. Are
+you successful, are you happy? It has been so provoking, not knowing
+more about you."
+
+There was something in the manner in which this was said that caused him
+to break into a loud laugh; whereupon she added,--
+
+"Your laugh is just what it used to be. How it comes back to me! You
+_have_ improved in appearance," she went on.
+
+She had seated herself, though he remained standing; and she leaned back
+in a low, deep chair, looking up at him, with her arms folded. He stood
+near her and over her, as it were, dropping his baffled eyes on her,
+with his hand resting on the corner of the chimney-piece. "Has it never
+occurred to you that I may deem myself absolved from the promise made
+you before I married you?"
+
+"Very often, of course. But I have instantly dismissed the idea. How can
+you be 'absolved'? One promises, or one doesn't. I attach no meaning
+to that, and neither do you." And she glanced down to the front of her
+dress.
+
+Benyon listened, but he went on as if he had not heard her. "What I came
+to say to you is this: that I should like your consent to my bringing a
+suit for divorce against you."
+
+"A suit for divorce? I never thought of that."
+
+"So that I may marry another woman. I can easily obtain a divorce on the
+ground of your desertion."
+
+She stared a moment, then her smile solidified, as it were, and she
+looked grave; but he could see that her gravity, with her lifted
+eyebrows, was partly assumed. "Ah, you want to marry another woman!" she
+exclaimed, slowly, thoughtfully. He said nothing, and she went on: "Why
+don't you do as I have done?"
+
+"Because I don't want my children to be--"
+
+Before he could say the words she sprang up, checking him with a cry.
+"Don't say it; it is n't necessary! Of course I know what you mean; but
+they won't be if no one knows it."
+
+"I should object to knowing it myself; it's enough for me to know it of
+yours."
+
+"Of course I have been prepared for your saying that"
+
+"I should hope so!" Benyon exclaimed. "You may be a bigamist if it
+suits you, but to me the idea is not attractive. I wish to marry--" and,
+hesitating a moment, with his slight stammer, he repeated, "I wish to
+marry--"
+
+"Marry, then, and have done with it!" cried Mrs. Roy.
+
+He could already see that he should be able to extract no consent from
+her; he felt rather sick. "It's extraordinary to me that you should n't
+be more afraid of being found out," he said after a moment's reflection.
+"There are two or three possible accidents."
+
+"How do you know how much afraid I am? I have thought of every accident,
+in dreadful nights. How do you know what my life is, or what it has been
+all these miserable years?"
+
+"You look wasted and worn, certainly."
+
+"Ah, don't compliment me!" Georgina exclaimed. "If I had never known
+you--if I had not been through all this--I believe I should have been
+handsome. When did you hear of my marriage? Where were you at the time?"
+
+"At Naples, more than six months ago, by a mere chance."
+
+"How strange that it should have taken you so long! Is the lady a
+Neapolitan? They don't mind what they do over there."
+
+"I have no information to give you beyond what I just said," Benyon
+rejoined. "My life does n't in the least regard you."
+
+"Ah, but it does from the moment I refuse to let you divorce me."
+
+"You refuse?" Benyon said softly.
+
+"Don't look at me that way! You have n't advanced so rapidly as I used
+to think you would; you haven't distinguished yourself so much," she
+went on, irrelevantly.
+
+"I shall be promoted commodore one of these days," Benyon answered.
+"You don't know much about it, for my advancement has already been very
+exceptionally rapid." He blushed as soon as the words were out of his
+mouth. She gave a light laugh on seeing it; but he took up his hat and
+added: "Think over a day or two what I have proposed to you. Think of
+the temper in which I ask it."
+
+"The temper?" she stared. "Pray, what have you to do with temper?" And
+as he made no reply, smoothing his hat with his glove, she went on:
+"Years ago, as much as you please I you had a good right, I don't deny,
+and you raved, in your letters, to your heart's content That's why
+I would n't see you; I did n't wish to take it full in the face. But
+that's all over now, time is a healer, you have cooled off, and by your
+own admission you have consoled yourself. Why do you talk to me about
+temper! What in the world have I done to you, but let you alone?"
+
+"What do you call this business?" Benyon asked, with his eye flashing
+all over the room.
+
+"Ah, excuse me, that doesn't touch you,--it's my affair. I leave you
+your liberty, and I can live as I like. If I choose to live in this way,
+it may be queer (I admit it is, awfully), but you have nothing to say
+to it. If I am willing to take the risk, you may be. If I am willing to
+play such an infernal trick upon a confiding gentleman (I will put it as
+strongly as you possibly could), I don't see what you have to say to it
+except that you are tremendously glad such a woman as that is n't known
+to be your wife!" She had been cool and deliberate up to this time; but
+with these words her latent agitation broke out "Do you think I have
+been happy? Do you think I have enjoyed existence? Do you see me
+freezing up into a stark old maid?"
+
+"I wonder you stood out so long!" said Benyon.
+
+"I wonder I did. They were bad years."
+
+"I have no doubt they were!"
+
+"You could do as you pleased," Georgina went on. "You roamed about the
+world; you formed charming relations. I am delighted to hear it from
+your own lips. Think of my going back to my father's house--that family
+vault--and living there, year after year, as Miss Gressie! If you
+remember my father and mother--they are round in Twelfth Street, just
+the same--you must admit that I paid for my folly!"
+
+"I have never understood you; I don't understand you now," said Benyon.
+
+She looked at him a moment. "I adored you."
+
+"I could damn you with a word!" he went on.
+
+The moment he had spoken she grasped his arm and held up her other hand,
+as if she were listening to a sound outside the room. She had evidently
+had an inspiration, and she carried it into instant effect She swept
+away to the door, flung it open, and passed into the hall, whence her
+voice came back to Benyon as she addressed a person who was apparently
+her husband. She had heard him enter the house at his habitual hour,
+after his long morning at business; the closing of the door of the
+vestibule had struck her ear. The parlor was on a level with the hall,
+and she greeted him without impediment. She asked him to come in and be
+introduced to Captain Benyon, and he responded with due solemnity. She
+returned in advance of him, her eyes fixed upon Benyon and lighted
+with defiance, her whole face saying to him, vividly: "Here is your
+opportunity; I give it to you with my own hands. Break your promise and
+betray me if you dare! You say you can damn me with a word: speak the
+word and let us see!"
+
+Benyon's heart beat faster, as he felt that it was indeed a chance; but
+half his emotion came from the spectacle--magnificent in its way--of her
+unparalleled impudence. A sense of all that he had escaped in not
+having had to live with her rolled over him like a wave, while he looked
+strangely at Mr. Roy, to whom this privilege had been vouchsafed. He saw
+in a moment his successor had a constitution that would carry it.
+Mr. Roy suggested squareness and solidity; he was a broadbased,
+comfortable, polished man, with a surface in which the rank tendrils
+of irritation would not easily obtain a foothold. He had a broad,
+blank face, a capacious mouth, and a small, light eye, to which, as
+he entered, he was engaged in adjusting a double gold-rimmed glass.
+He approached Benyon with a prudent, civil, punctual air, as if he
+habitually met a good many gentlemen in the course of business, and
+though, naturally, this was not that sort of occasion he was not a man
+to waste time in preliminaries. Benyon had immediately the impression
+of having seen him--or his equivalent--a thousand times before. He was
+middle-aged, fresh-colored, whiskered, prosperous, indefinite. Georgina
+introduced them to each other. She spoke of Benyon as an old friend whom
+she had known long before she had known Mr. Roy, who had been very kind
+to her years ago, when she was a girl.
+
+"He's in the navy. He has just come back from a long cruise."
+
+Mr. Hoy shook hands,--Benyon gave him his before he knew it,--said he
+was very happy, smiled, looked at Benyon from head to foot, then at
+Georgina, then round the room, then back at Benyon again,--at Benyon,
+who stood there, without sound or movement, with a dilated eye, and a
+pulse quickened to a degree of which Mr. Roy could have little idea.
+Georgina made some remark about their sitting down, but William Roy
+replied that he had n't time for that,--if Captain Benyon would excuse
+him. He should have to go straight into the library, and write a note to
+send back to his office, where, as he just remembered, he had neglected
+to give, in leaving the place, an important direction.
+
+"You can wait a moment, surely," Georgina said. "Captain Benyon wants so
+much to see you."
+
+"Oh, yes, my dear; I can wait a minute, and I can come back."
+
+Benyon saw, accordingly, that he was waiting, and that Georgina was
+waiting too. Each was waiting for him to say something, though they were
+waiting for different things. Mr. Roy put his hands behind him,
+balanced himself on his toes, hoped that Captain Benyon had enjoyed
+his cruise,--though he should n't care much for the navy himself,--and
+evidently wondered at the stolidity of his wife's visitor. Benyon knew
+he was speaking, for he indulged in two or three more observations,
+after which he stopped. But his meaning was not present to our hero.
+This personage was conscious of only one thing, of his own momentary
+power,--of everything that hung on his lips; all the rest swam before
+him; there was vagueness in his ears and eyes. Mr. Roy stopped, as I
+say, and there was a pause, which seemed to Benyon of tremendous length.
+He knew, while it lasted, that Georgina was as conscious as himself that
+he felt his opportunity, that he held it there in his hand, weighing it
+noiselessly in the palm, and that she braved and scorned, or, rather,
+that she enjoyed, the danger. He asked himself whether he should be able
+to speak if he were to try, and then he knew that he should not, that
+the words would stick in his throat, that he should make sounds that
+would dishonor his cause. There was no real choice or decision, then, on
+Benyon's part; his silence was after all the same old silence, the fruit
+of other hours and places, the stillness to which Georgina listened,
+while he felt her eager eyes fairly eat into his face, so that his
+cheeks burned with the touch of them. The moments stood before him in
+their turn; each one was distinct. "Ah, well," said Mr. Roy, "perhaps I
+interrupt,--I 'll just dash off my note" Benyon knew that he was rather
+bewildered, that he was making a pretext, that he was leaving the room;
+knew presently that Georgina again stood before him alone.
+
+"You are exactly the man I thought you!" she announced, as joyously as
+if she had won a bet.
+
+"You are the most horrible woman I can imagine. Good God! if I _had_ had
+to live with you!" That is what he said to her in answer.
+
+Even at this she never flushed; she continued to smile in triumph. "He
+adores me--but what's that to you? Of course you have all the future,"
+she went on; "but I know you as if I had made you!"
+
+Benyon reflected a moment "If he adores you, you are all right. If
+our divorce is pronounced, you will be free, and then he can marry you
+properly, which he would like ever so much better."
+
+"It's too touching to hear you reason about it. Fancy me telling such a
+hideous story--about myself--me--_me_!" And she touched her breasts with
+her white fingers.
+
+Benyon gave her a look that was charged with all the sickness of his
+helpless rage. "You--_you_!" he repeated, as he turned away from her and
+passed through the door which Mr. Roy had left open.
+
+She followed him into the hall, she was close behind him; he moved
+before her as she pressed. "There was one more reason," she said. "I
+would n't be forbidden. It was my hideous pride. That's what prevents me
+now."
+
+"I don't care what it is," Benyon answered, wearily, with his hand on
+the knob of the door.
+
+She laid hers on his shoulder; he stood there an instant feeling it,
+wishing that her loathsome touch gave him the right to strike her to the
+earth,--to strike her so that she should never rise again.
+
+"How clever you are, and intelligent always,--as you used to be; to
+feel so perfectly and know so well, without more scenes, that it's
+hopeless--my ever consenting! If I have, with you, the shame of having
+made you promise, let me at least have the profit!"
+
+His back had been turned to her, but at this he glanced round. "To hear
+you talk of shame--!"
+
+"You don't know what I have gone through; but, of course, I don't ask
+any pity from you. Only I should like to say something kind to you
+before we part I admire you, esteem you: I don't many people! Who will
+ever tell her, if you don't? How will she ever know, then? She will be
+as safe as I am. You know what that is," said Georgina, smiling.
+
+He had opened the door while she spoke, apparently not heeding her,
+thinking only of getting away from her forever. In reality he heard
+every word she said, and felt to his marrow the lowered, suggestive
+tone in which she made him that last recommendation. Outside, on the
+steps--she stood there in the doorway--he gave her his last look. "I
+only hope you will die. I shall pray for that!" And he descended into
+the street and took his way.
+
+It was after this that his real temptation came. Not the temptation to
+return betrayal for betrayal; that passed away even in a few days,
+for he simply knew that he couldn't break his promise, that it imposed
+itself on him as stubbornly as the color of his eyes or the stammer of
+his lips; it had gone forth into the world to live for itself, and was
+far beyond his reach or his authority. But the temptation to go through
+the form of a marriage with Kate Theory, to let her suppose that he was
+as free as herself, and that their children, if they should have any,
+would, before the law, have a right to exist,--this attractive idea held
+him fast for many weeks, and caused him to pass some haggard nights and
+days. It was perfectly possible she might learn his secret, and that,
+as no one could either suspect it or have an interest in bringing it to
+light, they both might live and die in security and honor. This vision
+fascinated him; it was, I say, a real temptation. He thought of other
+solutions,--of telling her that he was married (without telling her
+to whom), and inducing her to overlook such an accident, and content
+herself with a ceremony in which the world would see no flaw. But after
+all the contortions of his spirit it remained as clear to him as before
+that dishonor was in everything but renunciation. So, at last, he
+renounced. He took two steps which attested ths act to himself. He
+addressed an urgent request to the Secretary of the Navy that he might,
+with as little delay as possible, be despatched on another long voyage;
+and he returned to Boston to tell Kate Theory that they must wait. He
+could explain so little that, say what he would, he was aware that he
+could not make his conduct seem natural, and he saw that the girl
+only trusted him,--that she never understood. She trusted without
+understanding, and she agreed to wait. When the writer of these pages
+last heard of the pair they were waiting still.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgina's Reasons, by Henry James
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+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      Georgina's Reasons, by Henry James
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
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+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
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+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgina's Reasons, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Georgina's Reasons
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21771]
+Last Updated: September 18, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGINA'S REASONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      GEORGINA&rsquo;S REASONS
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Henry James <br /> <br /> <br /> 1885
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART"> PART I. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART2"> PART II. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> III. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> IV. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART3"> PART III. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> V. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VI. </a>
+          </p>
+          <a name="link2H_PART" id="link2H_PART">
+          <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      PART I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      She was certainly a singular girl, and if he felt at the end that he did
+      n&rsquo;t know her nor understand her, it is not surprising that he should have
+      felt it at the beginning. But he felt at the beginning what he did not
+      feel at the end, that her singularity took the form of a charm which&mdash;once
+      circumstances had made them so intimate&mdash;it was impossible to resist
+      or conjure away. He had a strange impression (it amounted at times to a
+      positive distress, and shot through the sense of pleasure&mdash;morally
+      speaking&mdash;with the acuteness of a sudden twinge of neuralgia) that it
+      would be better for each of them that they should break off short and
+      never see each other again. In later years he called this feeling a
+      foreboding, and remembered two or three occasions when he had been on the
+      point of expressing it to Georgina. Of course, in fact, he never expressed
+      it; there were plenty of good reasons for that. Happy love is not disposed
+      to assume disagreeable duties, and Raymond Benyon&rsquo;s love was happy, in
+      spite of grave presentiments, in spite of the singularity of his mistress
+      and the insufferable rudeness of her parents. She was a tall, fair girl,
+      with a beautiful cold eye and a smile of which the perfect sweetness,
+      proceeding from the lips, was full of compensation; she had auburn hair of
+      a hue that could be qualified as nothing less than gorgeous, and she
+      seemed to move through life with a stately grace, as she would have walked
+      through an old-fashioned minuet. Gentlemen connected with the navy have
+      the advantage of seeing many types of women; they are able to compare the
+      ladies of New York with those of Valparaiso, and those of Halifax with
+      those of the Cape of Good Hope. Eaymond Benyon had had these advantages,
+      and being very fond of women he had learnt his lesson; he was in a
+      position to appreciate Georgina Gressie&rsquo;s fine points. She looked like a
+      duchess,&mdash;I don&rsquo;t mean that in foreign ports Benyon had associated
+      with duchesses,&mdash;and she took everything so seriously. That was
+      flattering for the young man, who was only a lieutenant, detailed for duty
+      at the Brooklyn navy-yard, without a penny in the world but his pay, with
+      a set of plain, numerous, seafaring, God-fearing relations in New
+      Hampshire, a considerable appearance of talent, a feverish, disguised
+      ambition, and a slight impediment in his speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a spare, tough young man, his dark hair was straight and fine, and
+      his face, a trifle pale, was smooth and carefully drawn. He stammered a
+      little, blushing when he did so, at long intervals. I scarcely know how he
+      appeared on shipboard, but on shore, in his civilian&rsquo;s garb, which was of
+      the neatest, he had as little as possible an aroma of winds and waves. He
+      was neither salt nor brown, nor red, nor particularly &ldquo;hearty.&rdquo; He never
+      twitched up his trousers, nor, so far as one could see, did he, with his
+      modest, attentive manner, carry himself as one accustomed to command. Of
+      course, as a subaltern, he had more to do in the way of obeying. He looked
+      as if he followed some sedentary calling, and was, indeed, supposed to be
+      decidedly intellectual. He was a lamb with women, to whose charms he was,
+      as I have hinted, susceptible; but with men he was different, and, I
+      believe, as much of a wolf as was necessary. He had a manner of adoring
+      the handsome, insolent queen of his affections (I will explain in a moment
+      why I call her insolent); indeed, he looked up to her literally as well as
+      sentimentally; for she was the least bit the taller of the two. He had met
+      her the summer before, on the piazza of a hotel at Fort Hamilton, to
+      which, with a brother officer, in a dusty buggy, he had driven over from
+      Brooklyn to spend a tremendously hot Sunday,&mdash;the kind of day when
+      the navy-yard was loathsome; and the acquaintance had been renewed by his
+      calling in Twelfth Street on New-Year&rsquo;s Day,&mdash;a considerable time to
+      wait for a pretext, but which proved the impression had not been
+      transitory. The acquaintance ripened, thanks to a zealous cultivation (on
+      his part) of occasions which Providence, it must be confessed, placed at
+      his disposal none too liberally; so that now Georgina took up all his
+      thoughts and a considerable part of his time. He was in love with her,
+      beyond a doubt; but he could not flatter himself that she was in love with
+      him, though she appeared willing (what was so strange) to quarrel with her
+      family about him. He did n&rsquo;t see how she could really care for him,&mdash;she
+      seemed marked out by nature for so much greater a fortune; and he used to
+      say to her, &ldquo;Ah, you don&rsquo;t&mdash;there&rsquo;s no use talking, you don&rsquo;t&mdash;really
+      care for me at all!&rdquo; To which she answered, &ldquo;Really? You are very
+      particular. It seems to me it&rsquo;s real enough if I let you touch one of my
+      fingertips! &ldquo;That was one of her ways of being insolent Another was simply
+      her manner of looking at him, or at other people (when they spoke to her),
+      with her hard, divine blue eye,&mdash;looking quietly, amusedly, with the
+      air of considering (wholly from her own point of view) what they might
+      have said, and then turning her head or her back, while, without taking
+      the trouble to answer them, she broke into a short, liquid, irrelevant
+      laugh. This may seem to contradict what I said just now about her taking
+      the young lieutenant in the navy seriously. What I mean is that she
+      appeared to take him more seriously than she took anything else. She said
+      to him once, &ldquo;At any rate you have the merit of not being a shop-keeper;&rdquo;
+       and it was by this epithet she was pleased to designate most of the young
+      men who at that time flourished in the best society of New York. Even if
+      she had rather a free way of expressing general indifference, a young lady
+      is supposed to be serious enough when she consents to marry you. For the
+      rest, as regards a certain haughtiness that might be observed in Geoigina
+      Gressie, my story will probably throw sufficient light upon it She
+      remarked to Benyon once that it was none of his business why she liked
+      him, but that, to please herself, she did n&rsquo;t mind telling him she thought
+      the great Napoleon, before he was celebrated, before he had command of the
+      army of Italy, must have looked something like him; and she sketched in a
+      few words the sort of figure she imagined the incipient Bonaparte to have
+      been,&mdash;short, lean, pale, poor, intellectual, and with a tremendous
+      future under his hat Benyon asked himself whether <i>he</i> had a
+      tremendous future, and what in the world Geoigina expected of him in the
+      coming years. He was flattered at the comparison, he was ambitious enough
+      not to be frightened at it, and he guessed that she perceived a certain
+      analogy between herself and the Empress Josephine. She would make a very
+      good empress. That was true; Georgina was remarkably imperial. This may
+      not at first seem to make it more clear why she should take into her favor
+      an aspirant who, on the face of the matter, was not original, and whose
+      Corsica was a flat New England seaport; but it afterward became plain that
+      he owed his brief happiness&mdash;it was very brief&mdash;to her father&rsquo;s
+      opposition; her father&rsquo;s and her mother&rsquo;s, and even her uncles&rsquo; and her
+      aunts&rsquo;. In those days, in New York, the different members of a family took
+      an interest in its alliances, and the house of Gressie looked askance at
+      an engagement between the most beautiful of its daughters and a young man
+      who was not in a paying business. Georgina declared that they were
+      meddlesome and vulgar,&mdash;she could sacrifice her own people, in that
+      way, without a scruple,&mdash;and Benyon&rsquo;s position improved from the
+      moment that Mr. Gressie&mdash;ill-advised Mr. Gressie&mdash;ordered the
+      girl to have nothing to do with him. Georgina was imperial in this&mdash;that
+      she wouldn&rsquo;t put up with an order. When, in the house in Twelfth Street,
+      it began to be talked about that she had better be sent to Europe with
+      some eligible friend, Mrs. Portico, for instance, who was always planning
+      to go, and who wanted as a companion some young mind, fresh from manuals
+      and extracts, to serve as a fountain of history and geography,&mdash;when
+      this scheme for getting Georgina out of the way began to be aired, she
+      immediately said to Raymond Benyon, &ldquo;Oh, yes, I &lsquo;ll marry you!&rdquo; She said
+      it in such an off-hand way that, deeply as he desired her, he was almost
+      tempted to answer, &ldquo;But, my dear, have you really thought about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This little drama went on, in New York, in the ancient days, when Twelfth
+      Street had but lately ceased to be suburban, when the squares had wooden
+      palings, which were not often painted; when there were poplars in
+      important thoroughfares and pigs in the lateral ways; when the theatres
+      were miles distant from Madison Square, and the battered rotunda of Castle
+      Garden echoed with expensive vocal music; when &ldquo;the park&rdquo; meant the
+      grass-plats of the city hall, and the Bloomingdale road was an eligible
+      drive; when Hoboken, of a summer afternoon, was a genteel resort, and the
+      handsomest house in town was on the corner of the Fifth Avenue and
+      Fifteenth Street. This will strike the modern reader, I fear, as rather a
+      primitive epoch; but I am not sure that the strength of human passions is
+      in proportion to the elongation of a city. Several of them, at any rate,
+      the most robust and most familiar,&mdash;love, ambition, jealousy,
+      resentment, greed,&mdash;subsisted in considerable force in the little
+      circle at which we have glanced, where a view by no means favorable was
+      taken of Raymond Benyon&rsquo;s attentions to Miss Gressie. Unanimity was a
+      family trait among these people (Georgina was an exception), especially in
+      regard to the important concerns of life, such as marriages and closing
+      scenes. The Gressies hung together; they were accustomed to do well for
+      themselves and for each other. They did everything well: got themselves
+      born well (they thought it excellent to be born a Gressie), lived well,
+      married well, died well, and managed to be well spoken of afterward. In
+      deference to this last-mentioned habit, I must be careful what I say of
+      them. They took an interest in each other&rsquo;s concerns, an interest that
+      could never be regarded as of a meddlesome nature, inasmuch as they all
+      thought alike about all their affairs, and interference took the happy
+      form of congratulation and encouragement. These affairs were invariably
+      lucky, and, as a general thing, no Gressie had anything to do but feel
+      that another Gressie had been almost as shrewd and decided as he himself
+      would have been. The great exception to that, as I have said, was this
+      case of Georgina, who struck such a false note, a note that startled them
+      all, when she told her father that she should like to unite herself to a
+      young man engaged in the least paying business that any Gressie had ever
+      heard of. Her two sisters had married into the most flourishing firms, and
+      it was not to be thought of that&mdash;with twenty cousins growing up
+      around her&mdash;she should put down the standard of success. Her mother
+      had told her a fortnight before this that she must request Mr. Benyon to
+      cease coming to the house; for hitherto his suit had been of the most
+      public and resolute character. He had been conveyed up town from the
+      Brooklyn ferry, in the &ldquo;stage,&rdquo; on certain evenings, had asked for Miss
+      Georgina at the door of the house in Twelfth Street, and had sat with her
+      in the front parlor if her parents happened to occupy the back, or in the
+      back if the family had disposed itself in the front. Georgina, in her way,
+      was a dutiful girl, and she immediately repeated her mother&rsquo;s admonition
+      to Beuyon. He was not surprised, for though he was aware that he had not,
+      as yet, a great knowledge of society, he flattered himself he could tell
+      when&mdash;and where&mdash;a young man was not wanted. There were houses
+      in Brooklyn where such an animal was much appreciated, and there the signs
+      were quite different They had been discouraging&mdash;except on Georgina&rsquo;s
+      pail&mdash;from the first of his calling in Twelfth Street Mr. and Mrs.
+      Gressie used to look at each other in silence when he came in, and indulge
+      in strange, perpendicular salutations, without any shaking of hands.
+      People did that at Portsmouth, N.H., when they were glad to see you; but
+      in New York there was more luxuriance, and gesture had a different value.
+      He had never, in Twelfth Street, been asked to &ldquo;take anything,&rdquo; though the
+      house had a delightful suggestion, a positive aroma, of sideboards,&mdash;as
+      if there were mahogany &ldquo;cellarettes&rdquo; under every table. The old people,
+      moreover, had repeatedly expressed surprise at the quantity of leisure
+      that officers in the navy seemed to enjoy. The only way in which they had
+      not made themselves offensive was by always remaining in the other room;
+      though at times even this detachment, to which he owed some delightful
+      moments, presented itself to Benyon as a form of disapprobation. Of
+      course, after Mrs. Gressie&rsquo;s message, his visits were practically at an
+      end; he would n&rsquo;t give the girl up, but he would n&rsquo;t be beholden to her
+      father for the opportunity to converse with her. Nothing was left for the
+      tender couple&mdash;there was a curious mutual mistrust in their
+      tenderness&mdash;but to meet in the squares, or in the topmost streets, or
+      in the sidemost avenues, on the afternoons of spring. It was especially
+      during this phase of their relations that Georgina struck Benyon as
+      imperial Her whole person seemed to exhale a tranquil, happy consciousness
+      of having broken a law. She never told him how she arranged the matter at
+      home, how she found it possible always to keep the appointments (to meet
+      him out of the house) that she so boldly made, in what degree she
+      dissimulated to her parents, and how much, in regard to their continued
+      acquaintance, the old people suspected and accepted. If Mr. and Mrs.
+      Gressie had forbidden him the house, it was not, apparently, because they
+      wished her to walk with him in the Tenth Avenue or to sit at his side
+      under the blossoming lilacs in Stuyvesant Square. He didn&rsquo;t believe that
+      she told lies in Twelfth Street; he thought she was too imperial to lie;
+      and he wondered what she said to her mother when, at the end of nearly a
+      whole afternoon of vague peregrination with her lover, this bridling,
+      bristling matron asked her where she had been. Georgina was capable of
+      simply telling the truth; and yet if she simply told the truth, it was a
+      wonder that she had not been simply packed off to Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon&rsquo;s ignorance of her pretexts is a proof that this rather oddly-mated
+      couple never arrived at perfect intimacy,&mdash;in spite of a fact which
+      remains to be related. He thought of this afterwards, and thought how
+      strange it was that he had not felt more at liberty to ask her what she
+      did for him, and how she did it, and how much she suffered for him. She
+      would probably not have admitted that she suffered at all, and she had no
+      wish to pose for a martyr. Benyon remembered this, as I say, in the after
+      years, when he tried to explain to himself certain things which simply
+      puzzled him; it came back to him with the vision, already faded, of shabby
+      cross-streets, straggling toward rivers, with red sunsets, seen through a
+      haze of dust, at the end; a vista through which the figures of a young man
+      and a girl slowly receded and disappeared,&mdash;strolling side by side,
+      with the relaxed pace of desultory talk, but more closely linked as they
+      passed into the distance, linked by its at last appearing safe to them&mdash;in
+      the Tenth Avenue&mdash;that the young lady should take his arm. They were
+      always approaching that inferior thoroughfare; but he could scarcely have
+      told you, in those days, what else they were approaching. He had nothing
+      in the world but his pay, and he felt that this was rather a &ldquo;mean&rdquo; income
+      to offer Miss Gressie. Therefore he did n&rsquo;t put it forward; what he
+      offered, instead, was the expression&mdash;crude often, and almost
+      boyishly extravagant&mdash;of a delighted admiration of her beauty, the
+      tenderest tones of his voice, the softest assurances of his eye and the
+      most insinuating pressure of her hand at those moments when she consented
+      to place it in his arm. All this was an eloquence which, if necessary,
+      might have been condensed into a single sentence; but those few words were
+      scarcely needful, when it was as plain that he expected&mdash;in general&mdash;she
+      would marry him, as it was indefinite that he counted upon her for living
+      on a few hundreds a year. If she had been a different girl he might have
+      asked her to wait,&mdash;might have talked to her of the coming of better
+      days, of his prospective promotion, of its being wiser, perhaps, that he
+      should leave the navy and look about for a more lucrative career. With
+      Georgina it was difficult to go into such questions; she had no taste
+      whatever for detail. She was delightful as a woman to love, because when a
+      young man is in love he discovers that; but she could not be called
+      helpful, for she never suggested anything. That is, she never had done so
+      till the day she really proposed&mdash;for that was the form it took&mdash;to
+      become his wife without more delay. &ldquo;Oh, yes, I will marry you;&rdquo; these
+      words, which I quoted a little way back, were not so much the answer to
+      something he had said at the moment, as the light conclusion of a report
+      she had just made, for the first time, of her actual situation in her
+      father&rsquo;s house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I shall have to see less of you,&rdquo; she had begun by saying.
+      &ldquo;They watch me so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very little already,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;What is once or twice a week?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s easy for you to say. You are your own master, but you don&rsquo;t know
+      what I go through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do they make it very bad for you, dearest? Do they make scenes?&rdquo; Benyon
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course not. Don&rsquo;t you know us enough to know how we behave? No
+      scenes,&mdash;that would be a relief. However, I never make them myself,
+      and I never will&mdash;that&rsquo;s one comfort for you, for the future, if you
+      want to know. Father and mother keep very quiet, looking at me as if I
+      were one of the lost, with hard, screwing eyes, like gimlets. To me they
+      scarcely say anything, but they talk it all over with each other, and try
+      and decide what is to be done. It&rsquo;s my belief that father has written to
+      the people in Washington&mdash;what do you call it! the Department&mdash;to
+      have you moved away from Brooklyn,&mdash;to have you sent to sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess that won&rsquo;t do much good. They want me in Brooklyn, they don&rsquo;t
+      want me at sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they are capable of going to Europe for a year, on purpose to take
+      me,&rdquo; Geoigina said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can they take you, if you won&rsquo;t go? And if you should go, what good
+      would it do, if you were only to find me here when you came back, just the
+      same as you left me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; said Georgina, with her lovely smile, &ldquo;of course they think
+      that absence would cure me of&mdash;cure me of&mdash;&rdquo; And she paused,
+      with a certain natural modesty, not saying exactly of what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cure you of what, darling? Say it, please say it,&rdquo; the young man
+      murmured, drawing her hand surreptitiously into his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of my absurd infatuation!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And would it, dearest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, very likely. But I don&rsquo;t mean to try. I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t go to Europe,&mdash;not
+      when I don&rsquo;t want to. But it&rsquo;s better I should see less of you,&mdash;even
+      that I should appear&mdash;a little&mdash;to give you up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little? What do you call a little?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina said nothing, for a moment. &ldquo;Well, that, for instance, you should
+      n&rsquo;t hold my hand quite so tight!&rdquo; And she disengaged this conscious member
+      from the pressure of his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good will that do?&rdquo; Benyon asked,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will make them think it &lsquo;s all over,&mdash;that we have agreed to
+      part.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And as we have done nothing of the kind, how will that help us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had stopped at the crossing of a street; a heavy dray was lumbering
+      slowly past them. Georgina, as she stood there, turned her face to her
+      lover, and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At last: &ldquo;Nothing
+      will help us; I don&rsquo;t think we are very happy,&rdquo; she answered, while her
+      strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about her beautiful lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand how you see things. I thought you were going to say
+      you would marry me!&rdquo; Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though the
+      dray had passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, I will marry you!&rdquo; And she moved away, across the street. That
+      was the manner in which she had said it, and it was very characteristic of
+      her. When he saw that she really meant it, he wished they were somewhere
+      else,&mdash;he hardly knew where the proper place would be,&mdash;so that
+      he might take her in his arms. Nevertheless, before they separated that
+      day he had said to her he hoped she remembered they would be very poor,
+      reminding her how great a change she would find it She answered that she
+      should n&rsquo;t mind, and presently she said that if this was all that
+      prevented them the sooner they were married the better. The next time he
+      saw her she was quite of the same opinion; but he found, to his surprise,
+      it was now her conviction that she had better not leave her father&rsquo;s
+      house. The ceremony should take place secretly, of course; but they would
+      wait awhile to let their union be known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good will it do us, then?&rdquo; Raymond Benyon asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina colored. &ldquo;Well, if you don&rsquo;t know, I can&rsquo;t tell you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then it seemed to him that he did know. Yet, at the same time, he could
+      not see why, once the knot was tied, secrecy should be required. When he
+      asked what special event they were to wait for, and what should give them
+      the signal to appear as man and wife, she answered that her parents would
+      probably forgive her, if they were to discover, not too abruptly, after
+      six months, that she had taken the great step. Benyon supposed that she
+      had ceased to care whether they forgave her or not; but he had already
+      perceived that women are full of inconsistencies. He had believed her
+      capable of marrying him out of bravado, but the pleasure of defiance was
+      absent if the marriage was kept to themselves. Now, too, it appeared that
+      she was not especially anxious to defy,&mdash;she was disposed rather to
+      manage, to cultivate opportunities and reap the fruits of a waiting game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave it to me. Leave it to me. You are only a blundering man,&rdquo; Georgina
+      said. &ldquo;I shall know much better than you the right moment for saying,
+      &lsquo;Well, you may as well make the best of it, because we have already done
+      it!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That might very well be, but Benyon did n&rsquo;t quite understand, and he was
+      awkwardly anxious (for a lover) till it came over him afresh that there
+      was one thing at any rate in his favor, which was simply that the
+      loveliest girl he had ever seen was ready to throw herself into his arms.
+      When he said to her, &ldquo;There is one thing I hate in this plan of yours,&mdash;that,
+      for ever so few weeks, so few days, your father should support my wife,&rdquo;&mdash;when
+      he made this homely remark, with a little flush of sincerity in his face,
+      she gave him a specimen of that unanswerable laugh of hers, and declared
+      that it would serve Mr. Gressie right for being so barbarous and so
+      horrid. It was Benyon&rsquo;s view that from the moment she disobeyed her
+      father, she ought to cease to avail herself of his protection; but I am
+      bound to add that he was not particularly surprised at finding this a kind
+      of honor in which her feminine nature was little versed. To make her his
+      wife first&mdash;at the earliest moment&mdash;whenever she would, and
+      trust to fortune, and the new influence he should have, to give him, as
+      soon thereafter as possible, complete possession of her,&mdash;this rather
+      promptly presented itself to the young man as the course most worthy of a
+      person of spirit. He would be only a pedant who would take nothing because
+      he could not get everything at once. They wandered further than usual this
+      afternoon, and the dusk was thick by the time he brought her back to her
+      father&rsquo;s door. It was not his habit to como so near it, but to-day they
+      had so much to talk about that he actually stood with her for ten minutes
+      at the foot of the steps. He was keeping her hand in his, and she let it
+      rest there while she said,&mdash;by way of a remark that should sum up all
+      their reasons and reconcile their differences,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s one great thing it will do, you know; it will make me safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Safe from what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From marrying any one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my girl, if you were to do that&mdash;!&rdquo; Benyon exclaimed; but he did
+      n&rsquo;t mention the other branch of the contingency. Instead of this, he
+      looked up at the blind face of the house&mdash;there were only dim lights
+      in two or three windows, and no apparent eyes&mdash;and up and down the
+      empty street, vague in the friendly twilight; after which he drew Georgina
+      Gressie to his breast and gave her a long, passionate kiss. Yes,
+      decidedly, he felt, they had better be married. She had run quickly up the
+      steps, and while she stood there, with her hand on the bell, she almost
+      hissed at him, under her breath, &ldquo;Go away, go away; Amanda&rsquo;s coming!&rdquo;
+       Amanda was the parlor-maid, and it was in those terms that the Twelfth
+      Street Juliet dismissed her Brooklyn Romeo. As he wandered back into the
+      Fifth Avenue, where the evening air was conscious of a vernal fragrance
+      from the shrubs in the little precinct of the pretty Gothic church
+      ornamenting that charming part of the street, he was too absorbed in the
+      impression of the delightful contact from which the girl had violently
+      released herself to reflect that the great reason she had mentioned a
+      moment before was a reason for their marrying, of course, but not in the
+      least a reason for their not making it public. But, as I said in the
+      opening lines of this chapter, if he did not understand his mistress&rsquo;s
+      motives at the end, he cannot be expected to have understood them at the
+      beginning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico, as we know, was always talking about going to Europe; but
+      she had not yet&mdash;I mean a year after the incident I have just related&mdash;put
+      her hand upon a youthful cicerone. Petticoats, of course, were required;
+      it was necessary that her companion should be of the sex which sinks most
+      naturally upon benches, in galleries and cathredrals, and pauses most
+      frequently upon staircases that ascend to celebrated views. She was a
+      widow, with a good fortune and several sons, all of whom were in Wall
+      Street, and none of them capable of the relaxed pace at which she expected
+      to take her foreign tour. They were all in a state of tension. They went
+      through life standing. She was a short, broad, high-colored woman, with a
+      loud voice, and superabundant black hair, arranged in a way peculiar to
+      herself,&mdash;with so many combs and bands that it had the appearance of
+      a national coiffure. There was an impression in New York, about 1845, that
+      the style was Danish; some one had said something about having seen it in
+      Schleswig-Holstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico had a bold, humorous, slightly flamboyant look; people who
+      saw her for the first time received an impression that her late husband
+      had married the daughter of a barkeeper or the proprietress of a
+      menageria. Her high, hoarse, good-natured voice seemed to connect her in
+      some way with public life; it was not pretty enough to suggest that she
+      might have been an actress. These ideas quickly passed away, however, even
+      if you were not sufficiently initiated to know&mdash;as all the Grossies,
+      for instance, knew so well&mdash;that her origin, so far from being
+      enveloped in mystery, was almost the sort of thing she might have boasted
+      of. But in spite of the high pitch of her appearance, she didn&rsquo;t boast of
+      anything; she was a genial, easy, comical, irreverent person, with a large
+      charity, a democratic, fraternizing turn of mind, and a contempt for many
+      worldly standards, which she expressed not in the least in general axioms
+      (for she had a mortal horror of philosophy), but in violent ejaculations
+      on particular occasions. She had not a grain of moral timidity, and she
+      fronted a delicate social problem as sturdily as she would have barred the
+      way of a gentleman she might have met in her vestibule with the
+      plate-chest The only thing which prevented her being a bore in orthodox
+      circles was that she was incapable of discussion. She never lost her
+      temper, but she lost her vocabulary, and ended quietly by praying that
+      Heaven would give her an opportunity to <i>show</i> what she believed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was an old friend of Mr. and Mrs. Gressie, who esteemed her for the
+      antiquity of her lineage and the frequency of her subscriptions, and to
+      whom she rendered the service of making them feel liberal,&mdash;like
+      people too sure of their own position to be frightened. She was their
+      indulgence, their dissipation, their point of contact with dangerous
+      heresies; so long as they continued to see her they could not be accused
+      of being narrow-minded,&mdash;a matter as to which they were perhaps
+      vaguely conscious of the necessity of taking their precautions. Mrs.
+      Portico never asked herself whether she liked the Gressies; she had no
+      disposition for morbid analysis, she accepted transmitted associations,
+      and she found, somehow, that her acquaintance with these people helped her
+      to relieve herself. She was always making scenes in their drawing-room,
+      scenes half indignant, half jocose, like all her manifestations, to which
+      it must be confessed that they adapted themselves beautifully. They never
+      &ldquo;met&rdquo; her in the language of controversy; but always collected to watch
+      her, with smiles and comfortable platitudes, as if they envied her
+      superior richness of temperament She took an interest in Georgina, who
+      seemed to her different from the others, with suggestions about her of
+      being likely not to marry so unrefreshingly as her sisters had done, and
+      of a high, bold standard of duty. Her sisters had married from duty, but
+      Mrs. Portico would rather have chopped off one of her large, plump hands
+      than behave herself so well as that She had, in her daughterless
+      condition, a certain ideal of a girl that should be beautiful and
+      romantic, with lustrous eyes, and a little persecuted, so that she, Mrs.
+      Portico, might get her out of her troubles. She looked to Georgina, to a
+      considerable degree, to gratify her in this way; but she had really never
+      understood Geoigina at all She ought to have been shrewd, but she lacked
+      this refinement, and she never understood anything until after many
+      disappointments and vexations. It was difficult to startle her, but she
+      was much startled by a communication that this young lady made her one
+      fine spring morning. With her florid appearance and her speculative mind,
+      she was probably the most innocent woman in New York.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina came very early,&mdash;earlier even than visits were paid in New
+      York thirty years ago; and instantly, without any preface, looking her
+      straight in the face, told Mrs. Portico that she was in great trouble and
+      must appeal to her for assistance. Georgina had in her aspect no symptom
+      of distress; she was as fresh and beautiful as the April day itself; she
+      held up her head and smiled, with a sort of familiar bravado, looking like
+      a young woman who would naturally be on good terms with fortune. It was
+      not in the least in the tone of a person making a confession or relating a
+      misadventure that she presently said: &ldquo;Well, you must know, to begin with&mdash;of
+      course, it will surprise you&mdash;that I &lsquo;m married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Married, Georgina Grossie!&rdquo; Mrs. Portico repeated in her most resonant
+      tones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina got up, walked with her majestic step across the room, and closed
+      the door. Then she stood there, her back pressed against the mahogany
+      panels, indicating only by the distance she had placed between herself and
+      her hostess the consciousness of an irregular position. &ldquo;I am not Georgina
+      Gressie! I am Georgina Benyon,&mdash;and it has become plain, within a
+      short time, that the natural consequence will take place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico was altogether bewildered. &ldquo;The natural consequence?&rdquo; she
+      exclaimed, staring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of one&rsquo;s being married, of course,&mdash;I suppose you know what that is.
+      No one must know anything about it. I want you to take me to Europe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico now slowly rose from her place, and approached her visitor,
+      looking at her from head to foot as she did so, as if to challenge the
+      truth of her remarkable announcement. She rested her hands on Georgina&rsquo;s
+      shoulders a moment, gazing into her blooming face, and then she drew her
+      closer and kissed her. In this way the girl was conducted back to the
+      sofa, where, in a conversation of extreme intimacy, she opened Mrs.
+      Portico&rsquo;s eyes wider than they had ever been opened before. She was
+      Raymond Benyon&rsquo;s wife; they had been married a year, but no one knew
+      anything about it. She had kept it from every one, and she meant to go on
+      keeping it. The ceremony had taken place in a little Episcopal church at
+      Harlem, one Sunday afternoon, after the service. There was no one in that
+      dusty suburb who knew them; the clergyman, vexed at being detained, and
+      wanting to go home to tea, had made no trouble; he tied the knot before
+      they could turn round. It was ridiculous how easy it had been. Raymond had
+      told him frankly that it must all be under the rose, as the young lady&rsquo;s
+      family disapproved of what she was doing. But she was of legal age, and
+      perfectly free; he could see that for himself. The parson had given a
+      grunt as he looked at her over his spectacles. It was not very
+      complimentary; it seemed to say that she was indeed no chicken. Of course
+      she looked old for a girl; but she was not a girl now, was she? Raymond
+      had certified his own identity as an officer in the United States Navy (he
+      had papers, besides his uniform, which he wore), and introduced the
+      clergyman to a friend he had brought with him, who was also in the navy, a
+      venerable paymaster. It was he who gave Georgina away, as it were; he was
+      an old, old man, a regular grandmother, and perfectly safe. He had been
+      married three times himself. After the ceremony she went back to her
+      father&rsquo;s; but she saw Mr. Benyon the next day. After that, she saw him&mdash;for
+      a little while&mdash;pretty often. He was always begging her to come to
+      him altogether; she must do him that justice. But she wouldn&rsquo;t&mdash;she
+      wouldn&rsquo;t now&mdash;perhaps she would n&rsquo;t ever. She had her reasons, which
+      seemed to her very good, but were very difficult to explain. She would
+      tell Mrs. Portico in plenty of time what they were. But that was not the
+      question now, whether they were good or bad; the question was for her to
+      get away from the country for several months,&mdash;far away from any one
+      who had ever known her. She would like to go to some little place in Spain
+      or Italy, where she should be out of the world until everything was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico&rsquo;s heart gave a jump as this serene, handsome, familiar girl,
+      sitting there with a hand in hers, and pouring forth this extraordinary
+      tale, spoke of everything being over. There was a glossy coldness in it,
+      an unnatural lightness, which suggested&mdash;poor Mrs. Portico scarcely
+      knew what. If Georgina was to become a mother, it was to be supposed she
+      was to remain a mother. She said there was a beautiful place in Italy&mdash;Genoa&mdash;of
+      which Raymond had often spoken&mdash;and where he had been more than once,&mdash;he
+      admired it so much; could n&rsquo;t they go there and be quiet for a little
+      while? She was asking a great favor,&mdash;that she knew very well; but if
+      Mrs. Portico would n&rsquo;t take her, she would find some one who would. They
+      had talked of such a journey so often; and, certainly, if Mrs. Portico had
+      been willing before, she ought to be much more willing now. The girl
+      declared that she must do something,&mdash;go somewhere,&mdash;keep, in
+      one way or another, her situation unperceived. There was no use talking to
+      her about telling,&mdash;she would rather die than tell. No doubt it
+      seemed strange, but she knew what she was about. No one had guessed
+      anything yet,&mdash;she had succeeded perfectly in doing what she wished,&mdash;and
+      her father and mother believed&mdash;as Mrs. Portico had believed,&mdash;had
+      n&rsquo;t she?&mdash;that, any time the last year, Raymond Beuyon was less to
+      her than he had been before. Well, so he was; yes, he was. He had gone
+      away&mdash;he was off, Heaven knew where&mdash;in the Pacific; she was
+      alone, and now she would remain alone. The family believed it was all
+      over,&mdash;with his going back to his ship, and other things, and they
+      were right: for it <i>was</i> over, or it would be soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico, by this time, had grown almost afraid of her young friend;
+      <i>she</i> had so little fear, she had even, as it were, so little shame.
+      If the good lady had been accustomed to analyzing things a little more,
+      she would have said she had so little conscience. She looked at Georgina
+      with dilated eyes,&mdash;her visitor was so much the calmer of the two,&mdash;and
+      exclaimed, and murmured, and sunk back, and sprung forward, and wiped her
+      forehead with her pocket-handkerchief! There were things she didn&rsquo;t
+      understand; that they should all have been so deceived, that they should
+      have thought Georgina was giving her lover up (they flattered themselves
+      she was discouraged, or had grown tired of him), when she was really only
+      making it impossible she should belong to any one else. And with this, her
+      inconsequence, her capriciousness, her absence of motive, the way she
+      contradicted herself, her apparent belief that she could hush up such a
+      situation forever! There was nothing shameful in having married poor Mr.
+      Benyon, even in a little church at Harlem, and being given away by a
+      paymaster. It was much more shameful to be in such a state without being
+      prepared to make the proper explanations. And she must have seen very
+      little of her husband; she must have given him up&mdash;so far as meeting
+      him went&mdash;almost as soon as she had taken him. Had not Mrs. Gressie
+      herself told Mrs. Portico (in the preceding October, it must have been)
+      that there now would be no need of sending Georgina away, inasmuch as the
+      affair with the little navy man&mdash;a project in every way so unsuitable&mdash;had
+      quite blown over?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After our marriage I saw him less, I saw him a great deal less,&rdquo; Georgina
+      explained; but her explanation only appeared to make the mystery more
+      dense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see, in that case, what on earth you married him for!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had to be more careful; I wished to appear to have given him up. Of
+      course we were really more intimate,&mdash;I saw him differently,&rdquo;
+       Georgina said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think so! I can&rsquo;t for the life of me see why you were n&rsquo;t
+      discovered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All I can say is we weren&rsquo;t No doubt it&rsquo;s remarkable. We managed very
+      well,&mdash;that is, I managed,&mdash;he did n&rsquo;t want to manage at all.
+      And then, father and mother are incredibly stupid!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico exhaled a comprehensive moan, feeling glad, on the whole,
+      that she had n&rsquo;t a daughter, while Georgina went on to furnish a few more
+      details. Raymond Benyon, in the summer, had been ordered from Brooklyn to
+      Charlestown, near Boston, where, as Mrs. Portico perhaps knew, there was
+      another navy-yard, in which there was a temporary press of work, requiring
+      more oversight He had remained there several months, during which he had
+      written to her urgently to come to him, and during which, as well, he had
+      received notice that he was to rejoin his ship a little later. Before
+      doing so he came back to Brooklyn for a few weeks to wind up his work
+      there, and then she had seen him&mdash;well, pretty often. That was the
+      best time of all the year that had elapsed since their marriage. It was a
+      wonder at home that nothing had then been guessed; because she had really
+      been reckless, and Benyon had even tried to force on a disclosure. But
+      they <i>were</i> stupid, that was very certain. He had besought her again
+      and again to put an end to their false position, but she did n&rsquo;t want it
+      any more than she had wanted it before. They had rather a bad parting; in
+      fact, for a pair of lovers, it was a very queer parting indeed. He did n&rsquo;t
+      know, now, the thing she had come to tell Mrs. Portico. She had not
+      written to him. He was on a very long cruise. It might be two years before
+      he returned to the United States. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care how long he stays away,&rdquo;
+       Georgina said, very simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t mentioned why you married him. Perhaps you don&rsquo;t remember,&rdquo;
+       Mrs. Portico broke out, with her masculine laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes; I loved him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have got over that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina hesitated a moment. &ldquo;Why, no, Mrs. Portico, of course I haven&rsquo;t;
+      Raymond&rsquo;s a splendid fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why don&rsquo;t you live with him? You don&rsquo;t explain that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would be the use when he&rsquo;s always away? How can one live with a man
+      that spends half his life in the South Seas? If he was n&rsquo;t in the navy it
+      would be different; but to go through everything,&mdash;I mean everything
+      that making our marriage known would bring upon me,&mdash;the scolding and
+      the exposure and the ridicule, the scenes at home,&mdash;to go through it
+      all, just for the idea, and yet be alone here, just as I was before,
+      without my husband after all,&mdash;with none of the good of him,&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      here Georgina looked at her hostess as if with the certitude that such an
+      enumeration of inconveniences would touch her effectually,&mdash;&ldquo;really,
+      Mrs. Portico, I am bound to say I don&rsquo;t think that would be worth while; I
+      haven&rsquo;t the courage for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never thought you were a coward,&rdquo; said Mrs. Portico.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I am not,&mdash;if you will give me time. I am very patient.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never thought that, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marrying changes one,&rdquo; said Georgina, still smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It certainly seems to have had a very peculiar effect upon you. Why don&rsquo;t
+      you make him leave the navy, and arrange your life comfortably, like every
+      one else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would n&rsquo;t for the world interfere with his prospects&mdash;with his
+      promotion. That is sure to come for him, and to come quickly, he has such
+      talents. He is devoted to his profession; it would ruin him to leave it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young woman, you are a wonderful creature!&rdquo; Mrs. Portico
+      exclaimed, looking at her companion as if she had been in a glass case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So poor Raymond says,&rdquo; Georgina answered, smiling more than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, I should have been very sorry to marry a navy man; but if I
+      had married him, I should stick to him, in the face of all the scoldings
+      in the universe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what your parents may have been; I know what mine are,&rdquo;,
+      Georgina replied, with some dignity. &ldquo;When he&rsquo;s a captain, we shall come
+      out of hiding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what shall you do meanwhile? What will you do with your children?
+      Where will you hide them? What will you do with this one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina rested her eyes on her lap for a minute; then, raising them, she
+      met those of Mrs. Portico. &ldquo;Somewhere in Europe,&rdquo; she said, in her sweet
+      tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Georgina Gressie, you &lsquo;re a monster!&rdquo; the elder lady cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what I am about, and you will help me,&rdquo; the girl went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will go and tell your father and mother the whole story,&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      what I will do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not in the least afraid of that, not in the least. You will help me,&mdash;I
+      assure you that you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean I will support the child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina broke into a laugh. &ldquo;I do believe you would, if I were to ask
+      you! But I won&rsquo;t go so far as that; I have something of my own. All I want
+      you to do is to be with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Genoa,&mdash;yes, you have got it all fixed! You say Mr. Benyon is so
+      fond of the place. That&rsquo;s all very well; but how will he like his infant
+      being deposited there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He won&rsquo;t like it at all. You see I tell you the whole truth,&rdquo; said
+      Georgina, gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much obliged; it&rsquo;s a pity you keep it all for me! It is in his power,
+      then, to make you behave properly. <i>He</i> can publish your marriage if
+      you won&rsquo;t; and if he does you will have to acknowledge your child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Publish, Mrs. Portico? How little you know my Raymond! He will never
+      break a promise; he will go through fire first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what have you got him to promise?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never to insist on a disclosure against my will; never to claim me openly
+      as his wife till I think it is time; never to let any one know what has
+      passed between us if I choose to keep it still a secret&mdash;to keep it
+      for years&mdash;to keep it forever. Never to do anything in the matter
+      himself, but to leave it to me. For this he has given me his solemn word
+      of honor. And I know what that means!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico, on the sofa, fairly bounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You <i>do</i> know what you are about And Mr. Benyon strikes me as more
+      fantastic even than yourself. I never heard of a man taking such an
+      imbecile vow. What good can it do him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good? The good it did him was that, it gratified me. At the time he
+      took it he would have made any promise under the sun. It was a condition I
+      exacted just at the very last, before the marriage took place. There was
+      nothing at that moment he would have refused me; there was nothing I could
+      n&rsquo;t have made him do. He was in love to that degree&mdash;but I don&rsquo;t want
+      to boast,&rdquo; said Georgina, with quiet grandeur. &ldquo;He wanted&mdash;he wanted&mdash;&rdquo;
+       she added; but then she paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He does n&rsquo;t seem to have wanted much!&rdquo; Mrs. Portico cried, in a tone
+      which made Georgina turn to the window, as if it might have reached the
+      street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hostess noticed the movement and went on: &ldquo;Oh, my dear, if I ever do
+      tell your story, I will tell it so that people will hear it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never will tell it. What I mean is, that Raymond wanted the sanction&mdash;of
+      the affair at the church&mdash;because he saw that I would never do
+      without it. Therefore, for him, the sooner we had it the better, and, to
+      hurry it on, he was ready to take any pledge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have got it pat enough,&rdquo; said Mrs. Portico, in homely phrase. &ldquo;I
+      don&rsquo;t know what you mean by sanctions, or what <i>you</i> wanted of &lsquo;em!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina got up, holding rather higher than before that beautiful head
+      which, in spite of the embarrassments of this interview, had not yet
+      perceptibly abated of its elevation. &ldquo;Would you have liked me to&mdash;to
+      not marry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico rose also, and, flushed with the agitation of unwonted
+      knowledge,&mdash;it was as if she had discovered a skeleton in her
+      favorite cupboard,&mdash;faced her young friend for a moment. Then her
+      conflicting sentiments resolved themselves into an abrupt question,
+      uttered,&mdash;for Mrs. Portico,&mdash;with much solemnity: &ldquo;Georgina
+      Gressie, were you really in love with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The question suddenly dissipated the girl&rsquo;s strange, studied, wilful
+      coldness; she broke out, with a quick flash of passion,&mdash;a passion
+      that, for the moment, was predominantly anger, &ldquo;Why else, in Heaven&rsquo;s
+      name, should I have done what I have done? Why else should I have married
+      him? What under the sun had I to gain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain quiver in Georgina&rsquo;s voice, a light in her eye which seemed to
+      Mrs. Portico more spontaneous, more human, as she uttered these words,
+      caused them to affect her hostess rather less painfully than anything she
+      had yet said. She took the girl&rsquo;s hand and emitted indefinite, admonitory
+      sounds. &ldquo;Help me, my dear old friend, help me,&rdquo; Georgina continued, in a
+      low, pleading tone; and in a moment Mrs. Portico saw that the tears were
+      in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You &lsquo;re a queer mixture, my child,&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Go straight home to
+      your own mother, and tell her everything; that is your best help.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are kinder than my mother. You must n&rsquo;t judge her by yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can she do to you? How can she hurt you? We are not living in pagan
+      times,&rdquo; said Mrs. Portico, who was seldom so historical &ldquo;Besides, you have
+      no reason to speak of your mother&mdash;to think of her, even&mdash;so!
+      She would have liked you to marry a man of some property; but she has
+      always been a good mother to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this rebuke Georgina suddenly kindled again; she was, indeed, as Mrs.
+      Portico had said, a queer mixture. Conscious, evidently, that she could
+      not satisfactorily justify her present stiffness, she wheeled round upon a
+      grievance which absolved her from self-defence. &ldquo;Why, then, did he make
+      that promise, if he loved me? No man who really loved me would have made
+      it,&mdash;and no man that was a man, as I understand being a man! He might
+      have seen that I only did it to test him,&mdash;to see if he wanted to
+      take advantage of being left free himself. It is a proof that he does n&rsquo;t
+      love me,&mdash;not as he ought to have done; and in such a case as that a
+      woman is n&rsquo;t bound to make sacrifices!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico was not a person of a nimble intellect; her mind moved
+      vigorously, but heavily; yet she sometimes made happy guesses. She saw
+      that Georgia&rsquo;s emotions were partly real and partly fictitious; that, as
+      regards this last matter, especially, she was trying to &ldquo;get up&rdquo; a
+      resentment, in order to excuse herself. The pretext was absurd, and the
+      good lady was struck with its being heartless on the part of her young
+      visitor to reproach poor Benyon with a concession on which she had
+      insisted, and which could only be a proof of his devotion, inasmuch as he
+      left her free while he bound himself. Altogether, Mrs. Portico was shocked
+      and dismayed at such a want of simplicity in the behavior of a young
+      person whom she had hitherto believed to be as candid as she was elegant,
+      and her appreciation of this discovery expressed itself in the
+      uncompromising remark: &ldquo;You strike me as a very bad girl, my dear; you
+      strike me as a very bad girl!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2_">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It will doubtless seem to the reader very singular that, in spite of this
+      reflection, which appeared to sum up her judgment of the matter, Mrs.
+      Portico should, in the course of a very few days, have consented to
+      everything that Georgina asked of her. I have thought it well to narrate
+      at length the first conversation that took place between them, but I shall
+      not trace further the details of the girl&rsquo;s hard pleading, or the steps by
+      which&mdash;in the face of a hundred robust and salutary convictions&mdash;the
+      loud, kind, sharp, simple, sceptical, credulous woman took under her
+      protection a damsel whose obstinacy she could not speak of without getting
+      red with anger. It was the simple fact of Georgina&rsquo;s personal condition
+      that moved her; this young lady&rsquo;s greatest eloquence was the seriousness
+      of her predicament She might be bad, and she had a splendid, careless,
+      insolent, fair-faced way of admitting it, which at moments, incoherently,
+      inconsistently, and irresistibly, resolved the harsh confession into tears
+      of weakness; but Mrs. Portico had known her from her rosiest years, and
+      when Georgina declared that she could n&rsquo;t go home, that she wished to be
+      with her and not with her mother, that she could n&rsquo;t expose herself,&mdash;how
+      could she?&mdash;and that she must remain with her and her only till the
+      day they should sail, the poor lady was forced to make that day a reality.
+      She was overmastered, she was cajoled, she was, to a certain extent,
+      fascinated. She had to accept Georgina&rsquo;s rigidity (she had none of her own
+      to oppose to it; she was only violent, she was not continuous), and once
+      she did this, it was plain, after all, that to take her young friend to
+      Europe was to help her, and to leave her alone was not to help her.
+      Georgina literally frightened Mrs. Portico into compliance. She was
+      evidently capable of strange things if thrown upon her own devices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, from one day to another Mrs. Portico announced that she was really at
+      last about to sail for foreign lands (her doctor having told her that if
+      she did n&rsquo;t look out she would get too old to enjoy them), and that she
+      had invited that robust Miss Gressie, who could stand so long on her feet,
+      to accompany her. There was joy in the house of Gressie at this
+      announcement, for though the danger was over, it was a great general
+      advantage to Georgina to go, and the Gressies were always elated at the
+      prospect of an advantage. There was a danger that she might meet Mr.
+      Benyon on the other side of the world; but it didn&rsquo;t seem likely that Mrs.
+      Portico would lend herself to a plot of that kind. If she had taken it
+      into her head to favor their love affair, she would have done it frankly,
+      and Georgina would have been married by this time. Her arrangements were
+      made as quickly as her decision had been&mdash;or rather had appeared&mdash;slow;
+      for this concerned those agile young men down town. Georgina was
+      perpetually at her house; it was understood in Twelfth Street that she was
+      talking over her future travels with her kind friend. Talk there was, of
+      course to a considerable degree; but after it was settled they should
+      start nothing more was said about the motive of the journey. Nothing was
+      said, that is, till the night before they sailed; then a few words passed
+      between them. Georgina had already taken leave of her relations in Twelfth
+      Street, and was to sleep at Mrs. Portico&rsquo;s in order to go down to the ship
+      at an early hour. The two ladies were sitting together in the firelight,
+      silent, with the consciousness of corded luggage, when the elder one
+      suddenly remarked to her companion that she seemed to be taking a great
+      deal upon herself in assuming that Raymond Benyon wouldn&rsquo;t force her hand.
+      <i>He</i> might choose to acknowledge his child, if she didn&rsquo;t; there were
+      promises and promises, and many people would consider they had been let
+      off when circumstances were so altered. She would have to reckon with Mr.
+      Benyon more than she thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what I am about,&rdquo; Georgina answered. &ldquo;There is only one promise,
+      for him. I don&rsquo;t know what you mean by circumstances being altered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything seems to me to be changed,&rdquo; poor Mrs. Portico murmured, rather
+      tragically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he is n&rsquo;t, and he never will! I am sure of him,&mdash;as sure as
+      that I sit here. Do you think I would have looked at him if I had n&rsquo;t
+      known he was a man of his word?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have chosen him well, my dear,&rdquo; said Mrs. Portico, who by this time
+      was reduced to a kind of bewildered acquiescence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I have chosen him well! In such a matter as this he will be
+      perfectly splendid.&rdquo; Then suddenly, &ldquo;Perfectly splendid,&mdash;that&rsquo;s why
+      I cared for him!&rdquo; she repeated, with a flash of incongruous passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This seemed to Mrs. Portico audacious to the point of being sublime; but
+      she had given up trying to understand anything that the girl might say or
+      do. She understood less and less, after they had disembarked in England
+      and begun to travel southward; and she understood least of all when, in
+      the middle of the winter, the event came off with which, in imagination,
+      she had tried to familiarize herself, but which, when it occurred, seemed
+      to her beyond measure strange and dreadful. It took place at Genoa, for
+      Georgina had made up her mind that there would be more privacy in a big
+      town than in a little; and she wrote to America that both Mrs. Portico and
+      she had fallen in love with the place and would spend two or three months
+      there. At that time people in the United States knew much less than to-day
+      about the comparative attractions of foreign cities, and it was not
+      thought surprising that absent New Yorkers should wish to linger in a
+      seaport where they might find apartments, according to Georgina&rsquo;s report,
+      in a palace painted in fresco by Vandyke and Titian. Georgina, in her
+      letters, omitted, it will be seen, no detail that could give color to Mrs.
+      Portico&rsquo;s long stay at Genoa. In such a palace&mdash;where the travellers
+      hired twenty gilded rooms for the most insignificant sum&mdash;a
+      remarkably fine boy came into the world. Nothing could have been more
+      successful and comfortable than this transaction. Mrs. Portico was almost
+      appalled at the facility and felicity of it. She was by this time in a
+      pretty bad way, and&mdash;what had never happened to her before in her
+      life&mdash;she suffered from chronic depression of spirits. She hated to
+      have to lie, and now she was lying all the time. Everything she wrote
+      home, everything that had been said or done in connection with their stay
+      in Genoa, was a lie. The way they remained indoors to avoid meeting chance
+      compatriots was a lie. Compatriots, in Genoa, at that period, were very
+      rare; but nothing could exceed the businesslike completeness of Georgina&rsquo;s
+      precautions. Her nerves, her self-possession, her apparent want of
+      feeling, excited on Mrs. Portico&rsquo;s part a kind of gloomy suspense; a
+      morbid anxiety to see how far her companion would go took possession of
+      the excellent woman, who, a few months before, hated to fix her mind on
+      disagreeable things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina went very far indeed; she did everything in her power to
+      dissimulate the origin of her child. The record of its birth was made
+      under a false name, and he was baptized at the nearest church by a
+      Catholic priest. A magnificent contadina was brought to light by the
+      doctor in a village in the hills, and this big, brown, barbarous creature,
+      who, to do her justice, was full of handsome, familiar smiles and coarse
+      tenderness, was constituted nurse to Raymond Benyon&rsquo;s son. She nursed him
+      for a fortnight under the mother&rsquo;s eye, and she was then sent back to her
+      village with the baby in her arms and sundry gold coin knotted into a
+      corner of her rude pocket-handkerchief. Mr. Gressie had given his daughter
+      a liberal letter of credit on a London banker, and she was able, for the
+      present, to make abundant provision for the little one. She called Mrs.
+      Portico&rsquo;s attention to the fact that she spent none of her money on
+      futilities; she kept it all for her small pensioner in the Genoese hills.
+      Mrs. Portico beheld these strange doings with a stupefaction that
+      occasionally broke into passionate protest; then she relapsed into a
+      brooding sense of having now been an accomplice so far that she must be an
+      accomplice to the end. The two ladies went down to Rome&mdash;Georgina was
+      in wonderful trim&mdash;to finish the season, and here Mrs. Portico became
+      convinced that she intended to abandon her offspring. She had not driven
+      into the country to see the nursling before leaving Genoa,&mdash;she had
+      said that she could n&rsquo;t bear to see it in such a place and among such
+      people. Mrs. Portico, it must be added, had felt the force of this plea,&mdash;felt
+      it as regards a plan of her own, given up after being hotly entertained
+      for a few hours, of devoting a day, by herself, to a visit to the big
+      contadina. It seemed to her that if she should see the child in the sordid
+      hands to which Georgina had consigned it she would become still more of a
+      participant than she was already. This young woman&rsquo;s blooming hardness,
+      after they got to Borne, acted upon her like a kind of Medusa-mask. She
+      had seen a horrible thing, she had been mixed up with it, and her motherly
+      heart had received a mortal chill. It became more clear to her every day
+      that, though Georgina would continue to send the infant money in
+      considerable quantities, she had dispossessed herself of it forever.
+      Together with this induction a fixed idea settled in her mind,&mdash;the
+      project of taking the baby herself, of making him her own, of arranging
+      that matter with the father. The countenance she had given Georgina up to
+      this point was an effective pledge that she would not expose her; but she
+      could adopt the child without exposing her; she could say that he was a
+      lovely baby&mdash;he was lovely, fortunately&mdash;whom she had picked up
+      in a poor village in Italy,&mdash;a village that had been devastated by
+      brigands. She would pretend&mdash;she could pretend; oh, yes, of course,
+      she could pretend! Everything was imposture now, and she could go on to
+      lie as she had begun. The falsity of the whole business sickened her; it
+      made her so yellow that she scarcely knew herself in her glass. None the
+      less, to rescue the child, even if she had to become falser still, would
+      be in some measure an atonement for the treachery to which she had already
+      lent herself. She began to hate Georgina, who had drawn her into such an
+      atrocious current, and if it had not been for two considerations she would
+      have insisted on their separating. One was the deference she owed to Mr.
+      and Mrs. Gressie, who had reposed such a trust in her; the other was that
+      she must keep hold of the mother till she had got possession of the infant
+      Meanwhile, in this forced communion, her aversion to her companion
+      increased; Georgina came to appear to her a creature of brass, of iron;
+      she was exceedingly afraid of her, and it seemed to her now a wonder of
+      wonders that she should ever have trusted her enough to come so far.
+      Georgina showed no consciousness of the change in Mrs. Portico, though
+      there was, indeed, at present, not even a pretence of confidence between
+      the two. Miss Gressie&mdash;that was another lie, to which Mrs. Portico
+      had to lend herself&mdash;was bent on enjoying Europe, and was especially
+      delighted with Rome. She certainly had the courage of her undertaking, and
+      she confessed to Mrs. Portico that she had left Raymond Benyon, and meant
+      to continue to leave him, in ignorance of what had taken place at Genoa.
+      There was a certain confidence, it must be said, in that. He was now in
+      Chinese waters, and she probably should not see him for years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico took counsel with herself, and the result of her cogitation
+      was, that she wrote to Mr. Benyon that a charming little boy had been born
+      to him, and that Georgina had put him to nurse with Italian peasants, but
+      that, if he would kindly consent to it, she, Mrs. Portico, would bring him
+      up much better than that. She knew not how to address her letter, and
+      Georgina, even if <i>she</i> should know, which was doubtful, would never
+      tell her; so she sent the missive to the care of the Secretary of the
+      Navy, at Washington, with an earnest request that it might immediately be
+      forwarded. Such was Mrs. Portico&rsquo;s last effort in this strange business of
+      Georgina&rsquo;s. I relate rather a complicated fact in a very few words when I
+      say that the poor lady&rsquo;s anxieties, indignations, repentances, preyed upon
+      her until they fairly broke her down. Various persons whom she knew in
+      Borne notified her that the air of the Seven Hills was plainly unfavorable
+      to her, and she had made up her mind to return to her native land, when
+      she found that, in her depressed condition, malarial fever had laid its
+      hand upon her. She was unable to move, and the matter was settled for her
+      in the course of an illness which, happily, was not prolonged. I have said
+      that she was not obstinate, and the resistance that she made on the
+      present occasion was not worthy even of her spasmodic energy. Brain-fever
+      made its appearance, and she died at the end of three weeks, during which
+      Georgina&rsquo;s attentions to her patient and protectress had been unremitting.
+      There were other Americans in Rome who, after this sad event, extended to
+      the bereaved young lady every comfort and hospitality. She had no lack of
+      opportunities for returning under a proper escort to New York. She
+      selected, you may be sure, the best, and re-entered her father&rsquo;s house,
+      where she took to plain dressing; for she sent all her pocket-money, with
+      the utmost secrecy, to the little boy in the Genoese hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should he come if he doesn&rsquo;t like you? He is under no obligation, and
+      he has his ship to look after. Why should he sit for an hour at a time,
+      and why should he be so pleasant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think he is very pleasant?&rdquo; Kate Theory asked, turning away her
+      face from her sister. It was important that Mildred should not see how
+      little the expression of that charming countenance corresponded with the
+      inquiry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This precaution was useless, however, for in a moment Mildred said, from
+      the delicately draped couch, where she lay at the open window, &ldquo;Kate
+      Theory, don&rsquo;t be affected!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s for you he comes. I don&rsquo;t see why he should n&rsquo;t; you are far
+      more attractive than I, and you have a great deal more to say. How can he
+      help seeing that you are the cleverest of the clever? You can talk to him
+      of everything: of the dates of the different eruptions, of the statues and
+      bronzes in the Museum, which you have never seen, poor darling! but which
+      you know more about than he does, than any one does. What was it you began
+      on last time? Oh, yes, you poured forth floods about Magna Græcia. And
+      then&mdash;and then&mdash;&rdquo; But with this Kate Theory paused; she felt it
+      would n&rsquo;t do to speak the words that had risen to her lips. That her
+      sister was as beautiful as a saint, and as delicate and refined as an
+      angel,&mdash;she had been on the point of saying something of that sort
+      But Mildred&rsquo;s beauty and delicacy were the fairness of mortal disease, and
+      to praise her for her refinement was simply to intimate that she had the
+      tenuity of a consumptive. So, after she had checked herself, the younger
+      girl&mdash;she was younger only by a year or two&mdash;simply kissed her
+      tenderly, and settled the knot of the lace handkerchief that was tied over
+      her head. Mildred knew what she had been going to say,&mdash;knew why she
+      had stopped. Mildred knew everything, without ever leaving her room, or
+      leaving, at least, that little salon of their own, at the <i>pension</i>,
+      which she had made so pretty by simply lying there, at the window that had
+      the view of the bay and of Vesuvius, and telling Kate how to arrange and
+      rearrange everything. Since it began to be plain that Mildred must spend
+      her small remnant of years altogether in warm climates, the lot of the two
+      sisters had been cast in the ungarnished hostelries of southern Europe.
+      Their little sitting-room was sure to be very ugly, and Mildred was never
+      happy till it was rearranged. Her sister fell to work, as a matter of
+      course, the first day, and changed the place of all the tables, sofas,
+      chairs, till every combination had been tried, and the invalid thought at
+      last that there was a little effect Kate Theory had a taste of her own,
+      and her ideas were not always the same as her sister&rsquo;s; but she did
+      whatever Mildred liked, and if the poor girl had told her to put the
+      doormat on the dining-table, or the clock under the sofa, she would have
+      obeyed without a murmur. Her own ideas, her personal tastes, had been
+      folded up and put away, like garments out of season, in drawers and
+      trunks, with camphor and lavender. They were not, as a general thing, for
+      southern wear, however indispensable to comfort in the climate of New
+      England, where poor Mildred had lost her health. Kate Theory, ever since
+      this event, had lived for her companion, and it was almost an
+      inconvenience for her to think that she was attractive to Captain Benyon.
+      It was as if she had shut up her house and was not in a position to
+      entertain. So long as Mildred should live, her own life was suspended; if
+      there should be any time afterwards, perhaps she would take it up again;
+      but for the present, in answer to any knock at her door, she could only
+      call down from one of her dusty windows that she was not at home. Was it
+      really in these terms she should have to dismiss Captain Benyon? If
+      Mildred said it was for her he came she must perhaps take upon herself
+      such a duty; for, as we have seen, Mildred knew everything, and she must
+      therefore be right She knew about the statues in the Museum, about the
+      excavations at Pompeii, about the antique splendor of Magna Græcia. She
+      always had some instructive volume on the table beside her sofa, and she
+      had strength enough to hold the book for half an hour at a time. That was
+      about the only strength she had now. The Neapolitan winters had been
+      remarkably soft, but after the first month or two she had been obliged to
+      give up her little walks in the garden. It lay beneath her window like a
+      single enormous bouquet; as early as May, that year, the flowers were so
+      dense. None of them, however, had a color so intense as the splendid blue
+      of the bay, which filled up all the rest of the view. It would have looked
+      painted, if you had not been able to see the little movement of the waves.
+      Mildred Theory watched them by the hour, and the breathing crest of the
+      volcano, on the other side of Naples, and the great sea-vision of Capri,
+      on the horizon, changing its tint while her eyes rested there, and
+      wondered what would become of her sister after she was gone. Now that
+      Percival was married,&mdash;he was their only brother, and from one day to
+      the other was to come down to Naples to show them his new wife, as yet a
+      complete stranger, or revealed only in the few letters she had written
+      them during her wedding tour,&mdash;now that Percival was to be quite
+      taken up, poor Kate&rsquo;s situation would be much more grave. Mildred felt
+      that she should be able to judge better, after she should have seen her
+      sister-in-law, how much of a home Kate might expect to find with the pair;
+      but even if Agnes should prove&mdash;well, more satisfactory than her
+      letters, it was a wretched prospect for Kate,&mdash;this living as a mere
+      appendage to happier people. Maiden aunts were very well, but being a
+      maiden aunt was only a last resource, and Kate&rsquo;s first resources had not
+      even been tried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the latter young lady wondered as well,&mdash;wondered in what
+      book Mildred had read that Captain Benyon was in love with her. She
+      admired him, she thought, but he didn&rsquo;t seem a man that would fall in love
+      with one like that She could see that he was on his guard; he would n&rsquo;t
+      throw himself away. He thought too much of himself, or at any rate he took
+      too good care of himself,&mdash;in the manner of a man to whom something
+      had happened which had given him a lesson. Of course what had happened was
+      that his heart was buried somewhere,&mdash;in some woman&rsquo;s grave; he had
+      loved some beautiful girl,&mdash;much more beautiful, Kate was sure, than
+      she, who thought herself small and dark,&mdash;and the maiden had died,
+      and his capacity to love had died with her. He loved her memory,&mdash;that
+      was the only thing he would care for now. He was quiet, gentle, clever,
+      humorous, and very kind in his manner; but if any one save Mildred had
+      said to her that if he came three times a week to Posilippo, it was for
+      anything but to pass his time (he had told them he didn&rsquo;t know another
+      soul in Naples), she would have felt that this was simply the kind of
+      thing&mdash;usually so idiotic&mdash;that people always thought it
+      necessary to say. It was very easy for him to come; he had the big ship&rsquo;s
+      boat, with nothing else to do; and what could be more delightful than to
+      be rowed across the bay, under a bright awning, by four brown sailors with
+      &ldquo;Louisiana&rdquo; in blue letters on their immaculate white shirts, and in gilt
+      letters on their fluttering hat ribbons? The boat came to the steps of the
+      garden of the <i>pension</i>, where the orange-trees hung over and made
+      vague yellow balls shine back out of the water. Kate Theory knew all about
+      that, for Captain Benyon had persuaded her to take a turn in the boat, and
+      if they had only had another lady to go with them, he could have conveyed
+      her to the ship, and shown her all over it It looked beautiful, just a
+      little way off, with the American flag hanging loose in the Italian air.
+      They would have another lady when Agnes should arrive; then Percival would
+      remain with Mildred while they took this excursion. Mildred had stayed
+      alone the day she went in the boat; she had insisted on it, and, of course
+      it was really Mildred who had persuaded her; though now that Kate came to
+      think of it, Captain Benyon had, in his quiet, waiting way&mdash;he turned
+      out to be waiting long after you thought he had let a thing pass&mdash;said
+      a good deal about the pleasure it would give him. Of course, everything
+      would give pleasure to a man who was so bored. He was keeping the
+      &ldquo;Louisiana&rdquo; at Naples, week after week, simply because these were the
+      commodore&rsquo;s orders. There was no work to be done there, and his time was
+      on his hands; but of course the commodore, who had gone to Constantinople
+      with the two other ships, had to be obeyed to the letter, however
+      mysterious his motives. It made no difference that he was a fantastic,
+      grumbling, arbitrary old commodore; only a good while afterwards it
+      occurred to Kate Theory that, for a reserved, correct man, Captain Benyon
+      had given her a considerable proof of confidence, in speaking to her in
+      these terms of his superior officer. If he looked at all hot when he
+      arrived at the <i>pension</i>, she offered him a glass of cold
+      &ldquo;orangeade.&rdquo; Mildred thought this an unpleasant drink,&mdash;she called it
+      messy; but Kate adored it, and Captain Benyon always accepted it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day I speak of, to change the subject, she called her sister&rsquo;s
+      attention to the extraordinary sharpness of a zigzagging cloud-shadow, on
+      the tinted slope of Vesuvius; but Mildred only remarked in answer that she
+      wished her sister would many the captain. It was in this familiar way that
+      constant meditation led Miss Theory to speak of him; it shows how
+      constantly she thought of him, for, in general, no one was more
+      ceremonious than she, and the failure of her health had not caused her to
+      relax any form that it was possible to keep up. There was a kind of slim
+      erectness, even in the way she lay on her sofa; and she always received
+      the doctor as if he were calling for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had better wait till he asks me,&rdquo; Kate Theory said. &ldquo;Dear Milly, if I
+      were to do some of the things you wish me to do, I should shock you very
+      much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish he would marry you, then. You know there is very little time, if I
+      wish to see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will never see it, Mildred. I don&rsquo;t see why you should take so for
+      granted that I would accept him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will never meet a man who has so few disagreeable qualities. He is
+      probably not enormously rich. I don&rsquo;t know what is the pay of a captain in
+      the navy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a relief to find there is something you don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Kate Theory
+      broke in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But when I am gone,&rdquo; her sister went on calmly, &ldquo;when I am gone there
+      will be plenty for both of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger sister, at this, was silent for a moment; then she exclaimed,
+      &ldquo;Mildred, you may be out of health, but I don&rsquo;t see why you should be
+      dreadful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know that since we have been leading this life we have seen no one we
+      liked better,&rdquo; said Milly. When she spoke of the life they were leading&mdash;there
+      was always a soft resignation of regret and contempt in the allusion&mdash;she
+      meant the southern winters, the foreign climates, the vain experiments,
+      the lonely waitings, the wasted hours, the interminable rains, the bad
+      food, the pottering, humbugging doctors, the damp <i>pensions</i>, the
+      chance encounters, the fitful apparitions, of fellow-travellers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should n&rsquo;t you speak for yourself alone? I am glad <i>you</i> like
+      him, Mildred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t like him, why do you give him orangeade?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this inquiry Kate began to laugh, and her sister continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you are glad I like him, my dear. If I did n&rsquo;t like him, and
+      you did, it would n&rsquo;t be satisfactory at all. I can imagine nothing more
+      miserable; I should n&rsquo;t die in any sort of comfort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate Theory usually checked this sort of allusion&mdash;she was always too
+      late&mdash;with a kiss; but on this occasion she added that it was a long
+      time since Mildred had tormented her so much as she had done to-day. &ldquo;You
+      will make me hate him,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that proves you don&rsquo;t already,&rdquo; Milly rejoined; and it happened
+      that almost at this moment they saw, in the golden afternoon, Captain
+      Benyon&rsquo;s boat approaching the steps at the end of the garden. He came that
+      day, and he came two days later, and he came yet once again after an
+      interval equally brief, before Percival Theory arrived, with Mrs.
+      Percival, from Borne. He seemed anxious to crowd into these few days, as
+      he would have said, a good deal of intercourse with the two remarkably
+      nice girls&mdash;or nice women, he hardly knew which to call them&mdash;whom
+      in the course of a long, idle, rather tedious detention at Naples, he had
+      discovered in the lovely suburb of Posilippo. It was the American consul
+      who had put him into relation with them; the sisters had had to sign, in
+      the consul&rsquo;s presence, some law-papers, transmitted to them by the man of
+      business who looked after their little property in America, and the kindly
+      functionary, taking advantage of the pretext (Captain Benyon happened to
+      come into the consulate as he was starting, indulgently, to wait upon the
+      ladies) to bring together &ldquo;two parties&rdquo; who, as he said, ought to
+      appreciate each other, proposed to his fellow-officer in the service of
+      the United States that he should go with him as witness of the little
+      ceremony. He might, of course, take his clerk, but the captain would do
+      much better; and he represented to Benyon that the Miss Theorys (singular
+      name, wa&rsquo; n&rsquo;t it?) suffered&mdash;he was sure&mdash;from a lack of
+      society; also that one of them was very sick, that they were real pleasant
+      and extraordinarily refined, and that the sight of a compatriot, literally
+      draped, as it were, in the national banner, would cheer them up more than
+      most anything, and give them a sense of protection. They had talked to the
+      consul about Benyon&rsquo;s ship, which they could see from their windows, in
+      the distance, at its anchorage. They were the only American ladies then at
+      Naples,&mdash;the only residents, at least,&mdash;and the captain would
+      n&rsquo;t be doing the polite thing unless he went to pay them his respects.
+      Benyon felt afresh how little it was in his line to call upon strange
+      women; he was not in the habit of hunting up female acquaintance, or of
+      looking out for the soft emotions which the sex only can inspire. He had
+      his reasons for this abstention, and he seldom relaxed it; but the consul
+      appealed to him on rather strong grounds; and he suffered himself to be
+      persuaded. He was far from regretting, during the first weeks at least, an
+      act which was distinctly inconsistent with his great rule,&mdash;that of
+      never exposing himself to the chance of seriously caring for an unmarried
+      woman. He had been obliged to make this rule, and had adhered to it with
+      some success. He was fond of women, but he was forced to restrict himself
+      to superficial sentiments. There was no use tumbling into situations from
+      which the only possible issue was a retreat The step he had taken with
+      regard to poor Miss Theory and her delightful little sister was an
+      exception on which at first he could only congratulate himself. That had
+      been a happy idea of the ruminating old consul; it made Captain Benyon
+      forgive him his hat, his boots, his shirtfront,&mdash;a costume which
+      might be considered representative, and the effect of which was to make
+      the observer turn with rapture to a half-naked lazzarone. On either side
+      the acquaintance had helped the time to pass, and the hours he spent at
+      the little <i>pension</i> at Posilippo left a sweet&mdash;and by no means
+      innutritive&mdash;taste behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the weeks went by his exception had grown to look a good deal like a
+      rule; but he was able to remind himself that the path of retreat was
+      always open to him. Moreover, if he should fall in love with the younger
+      girl there would be no great harm, for Kate Theory was in love only with
+      her sister, and it would matter very little to her whether he advanced or
+      retreated. She was very attractive, or rather very attracting. Small,
+      pale, attentive without rigidity, full of pretty curves and quick
+      movements, she looked as if the habit of watching and serving had taken
+      complete possession of her, and was literally a little sister of charity.
+      Her thick black hair was pushed behind her ears, as if to help her to
+      listen, and her clear brown eyes had the smile of a person too full of
+      tact to cany a dull face to a sickbed. She spoke in an encouraging voice,
+      and had soothing and unselfish habits. She was very pretty,&mdash;producing
+      a cheerful effect of contrasted black and white, and dressed herself
+      daintily, so that Mildred might have something agreeable to look at Benyon
+      very soon perceived that there was a fund of good service in her. Her
+      sister had it all now; but poor Miss Theory was fading fast, and then what
+      would become of this precious little force? The answer to such a question
+      that seemed most to the point was that it was none of his business. He was
+      not sick,&mdash;at least not physically,&mdash;and he was not looking out
+      for a nurse. Such a companion might be a luxury, but was not, as yet, a
+      necessity: The welcome of the two ladies, at first, had been simple, and
+      he scarcely knew what to call it but sweet; a bright, gentle friendliness
+      remained the tone of their greeting. They evidently liked him to come,&mdash;they
+      liked to see his big transatlantic ship hover about those gleaming coasts
+      of exile. The fact of Miss Mildred being always stretched on her couch&mdash;in
+      his successive visits to foreign waters Benyon had not unlearned (as why
+      should he?) the pleasant American habit of using the lady&rsquo;s personal name&mdash;made
+      their intimacy seem greater, their differences less; it was as if his
+      hostesses had taken him into their confidence and he had been&mdash;as the
+      consul would have said&mdash;of the same party. Knocking about the salt
+      parts of the globe, with a few feet square on a rolling frigate for his
+      only home, the pretty, flower-decked sitting-room of the quiet American
+      sisters became, more than anything he had hitherto known, his interior. He
+      had dreamed once of having an interior, but the dream had vanished in
+      lurid smoke, and no such vision had come to him again. He had a feeling
+      that the end of this was drawing nigh; he was sure that the advent of the
+      strange brother, whose wife was certain to be disagreeable, would make a
+      difference. That is why, as I have said, he came as often as possible the
+      last week, after he had learned the day on which Percival Theory would
+      arrive. The limits of the exception had been reached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been new to the young ladies at Posilippo, and there was no reason
+      why they should say to each other that he was a very different man from
+      the ingenuous youth who, ten years before, used to wander with Georgina
+      Gressie down vistas of plank fences brushed over with the advertisements
+      of quack medicines. It was natural he should be, and we, who know him,
+      would have found that he had traversed the whole scale of alteration.
+      There was nothing ingenuous in him now; he had the look of experience, of
+      having been seasoned and hardened by the years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His face, his complexion, were the same; still smooth-shaven and slim, he
+      always passed, at first, for a man scarcely out of his twenties. But his
+      expression was old, and his talk was older still,&mdash;the talk of one
+      who had seen much of the world (as indeed he had, to-day), and judged most
+      things for himself, with a humorous scepticism which, whatever concessions
+      it might make, superficially, for the sake of not offending (for instance)
+      two remarkably nice American women, of the kind that had kept most of
+      their illusions, left you with the conviction that the next minute it
+      would go quickly back to its own standpoint There was a curious
+      contradiction in him; he struck you as serious, and yet he could not be
+      said to take things seriously. This was what made Kate Theory feel so sure
+      that he had lost the object of his affections; and she said to herself
+      that it must have been under circumstances of peculiar sadness, for that
+      was, after all, a frequent accident, and was not usually thought, in
+      itself, a sufficient stroke to make a man a cynic. This reflection, it may
+      be added, was, on the young lady&rsquo;s part, just the least bit acrimonious.
+      Captain Benyon was not a cynic in any sense in which he might have shocked
+      an innocent mind; he kept his cynicism to himself, and was a very clever,
+      courteous, attentive gentleman. If he was melancholy, you knew it chiefly
+      by his jokes, for they were usually at his own expense; and if he was
+      indifferent, it was all the more to his credit that he should have exerted
+      himself to entertain his countrywomen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last time he called before the arrival of the expected brother, he
+      found Miss Theory alone, and sitting up, for a wonder, at her window. Kate
+      had driven into Naples to give orders at the hotel for the reception of
+      the travellers, who required accommodation more spacious than the villa at
+      Posilippo (where the two sisters had the best rooms) could offer them; and
+      the sick girl had taken advantage of her absence and of the pretext
+      afforded by a day of delicious warmth, to transfer herself, for the first
+      time in six months, to an arm-chair. She was practising, as she said, for
+      the long carriage-journey to the north, where, in a quiet corner they knew
+      of, on the Lago Maggiore, her summer was to be spent. Eaymond Benyon
+      remarked to her that she had evidently turned the corner and was going to
+      get well, and this gave her a chance to say various things that were on
+      her mind. She had many things on her mind, poor Mildred Theory, so caged
+      and restless, and yet so resigned and patient as she was; with a clear,
+      quick spirit, in the most perfect health, ever reaching forward, to the
+      end of its tense little chain, from her wasted and suffering body; and, in
+      the course of the perfect summer afternoon, as she sat there, exhilarated
+      by the success of her effort to get up, and by her comfortable
+      opportunity, she took her friendly visitor into the confidence of most of
+      her anxieties. She told him, very promptly and positively, that she was
+      not going to get well at all, that she had probably not more than ten
+      months yet to live, and that he would oblige her very much by not forcing
+      her to waste any more breath in contradicting him on that point. Of course
+      she could n&rsquo;t talk much; therefore, she wished to say to him only things
+      that he would not hear from any one else. Such, for instance, was her
+      present secret&mdash;Katie&rsquo;s and hers&mdash;the secret of their fearing so
+      much that they should n&rsquo;t like Percival&rsquo;s wife, who was not from Boston,
+      but from New York. Naturally, that by itself would be nothing, but from
+      what they had heard of her set&mdash;this subject had been explored by
+      their correspondents&mdash;they were rather nervous, nervous to the point
+      of not being in the least reassured by the fact that the young lady would
+      bring Percival a fortune. The fortune was a matter of course, for that was
+      just what they had heard about Agnes&rsquo;s circle&mdash;that the stamp of
+      money was on all their thoughts and doings. They were very rich and very
+      new and very splashing, and evidently had very little in common with the
+      two Miss Theorys, who, moreover, if the truth must be told (and this was a
+      great secret), did not care much for the letters their sister-in-law had
+      hitherto addressed them. She had been at a French boarding-school in New
+      York, and yet (and this was the greatest secret of all) she wrote to them
+      that she had performed a part of the journey through France in <i>diligance!</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, they would see the next day; Miss Mildred was sure she should
+      know in a moment whether Agnes would like them. She could never have told
+      him all this if her sister had been there, and Captain Benyon must promise
+      never to reveal to Kate how she had chattered. Kate thought always that
+      they must hide everything, and that even if Agnes should be a dreadful
+      disappointment they must never let any one guess it And yet Kate was just
+      the one who would suffer, in the coming years, after she herself had gone.
+      Their brother had been everything to them, but now it would all be
+      different Of course it was not to be expected that he should have remained
+      a bachelor for their sake; she only wished he had waited till she was dead
+      and Kate was married One of these events, it was true, was much less sure
+      than the other; Kate might never marry,&mdash;much as she wished she
+      would! She was quite morbidly unselfish, and did n&rsquo;t think she had a right
+      to have anything of her own&mdash;not even a husband. Miss Mildred talked
+      a good while about Kate, and it never occurred to her that she might bore
+      Captain Benyon. She did n&rsquo;t, in point of fact; he had none of the trouble
+      of wondering why this poor, sick, worried lady was trying to push her
+      sister down his throat Their peculiar situation made everything natural,
+      and the tone she took with him now seemed only what their pleasant
+      relation for the last three months led up to. Moreover, he had an
+      excellent reason for not being bored: the fact, namely, that after all,
+      with regard to her sister, Miss Mildred appeared to him to keep back more
+      than she uttered. She didn&rsquo;t tell him the great thing,&mdash;she had
+      nothing to say as to what that charming girl thought of Eaymond Benyon.
+      The effect of their interview, indeed, was to make him shrink from
+      knowing, and he felt that the right thing for him would be to get back
+      into his boat, which was waiting at the garden steps, before Kate Theory
+      should return from Naples. It came over him, as he sat there, that he was
+      far too interested in knowing what this young lady thought of him. She
+      might think what she pleased; it could make no difference to him. The best
+      opinion in the world&mdash;if it looked out at him from her tender eyes&mdash;would
+      not make him a whit more free or more happy. Women of that sort were not
+      for him, women whom one could not see familiarly without falling in love
+      with them, and whom it was no use to fall in love with unless one was
+      ready to marry them. The light of the summer afternoon, and of Miss
+      Mildred&rsquo;s pure spirit, seemed suddenly to flood the whole subject. He saw
+      that he was in danger, and he had long since made up his mind that from
+      this particular peril it was not only necessary but honorable to flee. He
+      took leave of his hostess before her sister reappeared, and had the
+      courage even to say to her that he would not come back often after that;
+      they would be so much occupied by their brother and his wife! As he moved
+      across the glassy bay, to the rhythm of the oars, he wished either that
+      the sisters would leave Naples or that his confounded commodore would send
+      for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Kate returned from her errand, ten minutes later, Milly told her of
+      the captain&rsquo;s visit, and added that she had never seen anything so sudden
+      as the way he left her. &ldquo;He would n&rsquo;t wait for you, my dear, and he said
+      he thought it more than likely that he should never see us again. It is as
+      if he thought you were going to die too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is his ship called away?&rdquo; Kate Theory asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did n&rsquo;t tell me so; he said we should be so busy with Percival and
+      Agnes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has got tired of us,&mdash;that&rsquo;s all. There&rsquo;s nothing wonderful in
+      that; I knew he would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mildred said nothing for a moment; she was watching her sister, who was
+      very attentively arranging some flowers. &ldquo;Yes, of course, we are very
+      dull, and he is like everybody else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you thought he was so wonderful,&rdquo; said Kate, &ldquo;and so fond of
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So he is; I am surer of that than ever. That&rsquo;s why he went away so
+      abruptly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate looked at her sister now. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I, darling. But you will, one of these days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How if he never comes back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he will&mdash;after a while&mdash;when I am gone. Then he will
+      explain; that, at least, is clear to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor precious, as if I cared!&rdquo; Kate Theory exclaimed, smiling as she
+      distributed her flowers. She carried them to the window, to place them
+      near her sister, and here she paused a moment, her eye caught by an
+      object, far out in the bay, with which she was not unfamiliar. Mildred
+      noticed its momentary look, and followed its direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the captain&rsquo;s gig going back to the ship,&rdquo; Milly said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s so
+      still one can almost hear the oars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate Theory turned away, with a sudden, strange violence, a movement and
+      exclamation which, the very next minute, as she became conscious of what
+      she had said,&mdash;and, still more, of what she felt&mdash;smote her own
+      heart (as it flushed her face) with surprise, and with the force of a
+      revelation: &ldquo;I wish it would sink him to the bottom of the sea!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her sister stared, then caught her by the dress, as she passed from her,
+      drawing her back with a weak hand. &ldquo;Oh, my dearest, my poorest!&rdquo; And she
+      pulled Kate down and down toward her, so that the girl had nothing for it
+      but to sink on her knees and bury her face in Mildred&rsquo;s lap. If that
+      ingenious invalid did not know everything now, she knew a great deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART3" id="link2H_PART3__">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Percival proved very pretty. It is more gracious to begin with this
+      declaration, instead of saying that, in the first place, she proved very
+      silly. It took a long day to arrive at the end of her silliness, and the
+      two ladies at Posilippo, even after a week had passed, suspected that they
+      had only skirted its edges. Kate Theory had not spent half an hour in her
+      company before she gave a little private sigh of relief; she felt that a
+      situation which had promised to be embarrassing was now quite clear, was
+      even of a primitive simplicity. She would spend with her sister-in-law, in
+      the coming time, one week in the year; that was all that was mortally
+      possible. It was a blessing that one could see exactly what she was, for
+      in that way the question settled itself. It would have been much more
+      tiresome if Agnes had been a little less obvious; then she would have had
+      to hesitate and consider and weigh one thing against another. She was
+      pretty and silly, as distinctly as an orange is yellow and round; and Kate
+      Theory would as soon have thought of looking to her to give interest to
+      the future as she would have thought of looking to an orange to impart
+      solidity to the prospect of dinner. Mrs. Percival travelled in the hope of
+      meeting her American acquaintance, or of making acquaintance with such
+      Americans as she did meet, and for the purpose of buying mementos for her
+      relations. She was perpetually adding to her store of articles in
+      tortoise-shell, in mother-of-pearl, in olive-wood, in ivory, in filigree,
+      in tartan lacquer, in mosaic; and she had a collection of Roman scarfs and
+      Venetian beads, which she looked over exhaustively every night before she
+      went to bed. Her conversation bore mainly upon the manner in which she
+      intended to dispose of these accumulations. She was constantly changing
+      about, among each other, the persons to whom they were respectively to be
+      offered. At Borne one of the first things she said to her husband after
+      entering the Coliseum had been: &ldquo;I guess I will give the ivory work-box to
+      Bessie and the Roman pearls to Aunt Harriet!&rdquo; She was always hanging over
+      the travellers&rsquo; book at the hotel; she had it brought up to her, with a
+      cup of chocolate, as soon as she arrived. She searched its pages for the
+      magical name of New York, and she indulged in infinite conjecture as to
+      who the people were&mdash;the name was sometimes only a partial cue&mdash;who
+      had inscribed it there. What she most missed in Europe, and what she most
+      enjoyed, were the New Yorkers; when she met them she talked about the
+      people in their native city who had &ldquo;moved&rdquo; and the streets they had moved
+      to. &ldquo;Oh, yes, the Drapers are going up town, to Twenty-fourth Street, and
+      the Vanderdeckens are going to be in Twenty-third Street, right back of
+      them. My uncle, Henry Piatt, thinks of building round there.&rdquo; Mrs.
+      Percival Theory was capable of repeating statements like these thirty
+      times over,&mdash;of lingering on them for hours. She talked largely of
+      herself, of her uncles and aunts, of her clothes&mdash;past, present, and
+      future. These articles, in especial, filled her horizon; she considered
+      them with a complacency which might have led you to suppose that she had
+      invented the custom of draping the human form. Her main point of contact
+      with Naples was the purchase of coral; and all the while she was there the
+      word &ldquo;set&rdquo;&mdash;she used it as if every one would understand&mdash;fell
+      with its little, flat, common sound upon the ears of her sisters-in-law,
+      who had no sets of anything. She cared little for pictures and mountains;
+      Alps and Apennines were not productive of New Yorkers, and it was
+      difficult to take an interest in Madonnas who flourished at periods when,
+      apparently, there were no fashions, or, at any rate, no trimmings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I speak here not only of the impression she made upon her husband&rsquo;s
+      anxious sisters, but of the judgment passed on her (he went so far as
+      that, though it was not obvious how it mattered to him) by Raymond Benyon.
+      And this brings me at a jump (I confess it&rsquo;s a very small one) to the fact
+      that he did, after all, go back to Posilippo. He stayed away for nine
+      days, and at the end of this time Percival Theory called upon him, to
+      thank him for the civility he had shown his kinswomen. He went to this
+      gentleman&rsquo;s hotel, to return his visit, and there he found Miss Kate, in
+      her brother&rsquo;s sitting-room. She had come in by appointment from the villa,
+      and was going with the others to seek the royal palace, which she had not
+      yet had an opportunity to inspect It was proposed (not by Kate), and
+      presently arranged, that Captain Benyon should go with them, and he
+      accordingly walked over marble floors for half an hour, exchanging
+      conscious commonplaces with the woman he loved. For this truth had rounded
+      itself during those nine days of absence; he discovered that there was
+      nothing particularly sweet in his life when once Kate Theory had been
+      excluded from it He had stayed away to keep himself from falling in love
+      with her; but this expedient was in itself illuminating, for he perceived
+      that, according to the vulgar adage, he was locking the stable door after
+      the horse had been stolen. As he paced the deck of his ship and looked
+      toward Posilippo, his tenderness crystallized; the thick, smoky flame of a
+      sentiment that knew itself forbidden and was angry at the knowledge, now
+      danced upon the fuel of his good resolutions. The latter, it must be said,
+      resisted, declined to be consumed. He determined that he would see Kate
+      Theory again, for a time, just sufficient to bid her good-by, and to add a
+      little explanation. He thought of his explanation very lovingly, but it
+      may not strike the reader as a happy inspiration. To part from her dryly,
+      abruptly, without an allusion to what he might have said if everything had
+      been different,&mdash;that would be wisdom, of course, that would be virtue,
+      that would be the line of a practical man, of a man who kept himself well
+      in hand. But it would be virtue terribly unrewarded,&mdash;it would be
+      virtue too austere for a person who sometimes flattered himself that he
+      had taught himself stoicism. The minor luxury tempted him irresistibly,
+      since the larger&mdash;that of happy love&mdash;was denied him; the luxury
+      of letting the girl know that it would not be an accident&mdash;oh, not at
+      all&mdash;that they should never meet again. She might easily think it
+      was, and thinking it was would doubtless do her no harm. But this would
+      n&rsquo;t give him his pleasure,&mdash;the Platonic satisfaction of expressing
+      to her at the same time his belief that they might have made each other
+      happy, and the necessity of his renunciation. That, probably, wouldn&rsquo;t
+      hurt her either, for she had given him no proof whatever that she cared
+      for him. The nearest approach to it was the way she walked beside him now,
+      sweet and silent, without the least reference to his not having been back
+      to the villa. The place was cool and dusky, the blinds were drawn, to keep
+      out the light and noise, and the little party wandered through the high
+      saloons, where precious marbles and the gleam of gilding and satin made
+      reflections in the rich dimness. Here and there the cicerone, in slippers,
+      with Neapolitan familiarity, threw open a shutter to show off a picture on
+      a tapestry. He strolled in front with Percival Theory and his wife, while
+      this lady, drooping silently from her husband&rsquo;s arm as they passed, felt
+      the stuff of the curtains and the sofas. When he caught her in these
+      experiments, the cicerone, in expressive deprecation, clasped his hands
+      and lifted his eyebrows; whereupon Mrs. Theory exclaimed to her husband,
+      &ldquo;Oh, bother his old king!&rdquo; It was not striking to Captain Benyon why
+      Percival Theory had married the niece of Mr. Henry Piatt. He was less
+      interesting than his sisters,&mdash;a smooth, cool, correct young man, who
+      frequently took out a pencil and did a little arithmetic on the back of a
+      letter. He sometimes, in spite of his correctness, chewed a toothpick, and
+      he missed the American papers, which he used to ask for in the most
+      unlikely places. He was a Bostonian converted to New York; a very special
+      type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it settled when you leave Naples?&rdquo; Benyon asked of Kate Theory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so; on the twenty-fourth. My brother has been very kind; he has
+      lent us his carriage, which is a large one, so that Mildred can lie down.
+      He and Agnes will take another; but, of course, we shall travel together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to Heaven I were going with you?&rdquo; Captain Benyon said. He had
+      given her the opportunity to respond, but she did not take it; she merely
+      remarked, with a vague laugh, that of course he couldn&rsquo;t take his ship
+      over the Apennines. &ldquo;Yes, there is always my ship,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I am
+      afraid that in future it will carry me far away from you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were alone in one of the royal apartments; their companions had
+      passed, in advance of them, into the adjoining room. Benyon and his
+      fellow-visitor had paused beneath one of the immense chandeliers of glass,
+      which in the clear, colored gloom (through it one felt the strong outer
+      light of Italy beating in) suspended its twinkling drops from the
+      decorated vault. They looked round them confusedly, made shy for the
+      moment by Benyon&rsquo;s having struck a note more serious than any that had
+      hitherto souuded between them, looked at the sparse furniture, draped in
+      white overalls, at the scagiiola floor, in which the great cluster of
+      crystal pendants seemed to shine again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are master of your ship. Can&rsquo;t you sail it as you like?&rdquo; Kate Theory
+      asked, with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not master of anything. There is not a man in the world less free. I
+      am a slave. I am a victim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with kind eyes; something in his voice suddenly made her
+      put away all thought of the defensive airs that a girl, in certain
+      situations, is expected to assume. She perceived that he wanted to make
+      her understand something, and now her only wish was to help him to say it.
+      &ldquo;You are not happy,&rdquo; she murmured, simply, her voice dying away in a kind
+      of wonderment at this reality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentle touch of the words&mdash;it was as if her hand had stroked his
+      cheek&mdash;seemed to him the sweetest thing he had ever known. &ldquo;No, I am
+      not happy, because I am not free. If I were&mdash;if I were, I would give
+      up my ship. I would give up everything, to follow you. I can&rsquo;t explain;
+      that is part of the hardness of it. I only want you to know it,&mdash;that
+      if certain things were different, if everything was different, I might
+      tell you that I believe I should have a right to speak to you. Perhaps
+      some day it will change; but probably then it will be too late. Meanwhile,
+      I have no right of any kind. I don&rsquo;t want to trouble you, and I don&rsquo;t ask
+      of you&mdash;anything! It is only to have spoken just once. I don&rsquo;t make
+      you understand, of course. I am afraid I seem to you rather a brute,&mdash;perhaps
+      even a humbug. Don&rsquo;t think of it now,&mdash;don&rsquo;t try to understand. But
+      some day, in the future, remember what I have said to you, and how we
+      stood here, in this strange old place, alone! Perhaps it will give you a
+      little pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate Theory began by listening to him with visible eagerness; but in a
+      moment she turned away her eyes. &ldquo;I am very sorry for you,&rdquo; she said,
+      gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you do understand enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall think of what you have said, in the future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon&rsquo;s lips formed the beginning of a word of tenderness, which he
+      instantly suppressed; and in a different tone, with a bitter smile and a
+      sad shake of the head, raising his arms a moment and letting them fall, he
+      said: &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t hurt any one, your remembering this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whom you mean.&rdquo; And the girl, abruptly, began to walk to the
+      end of the room. He made no attempt to tell her whom he meant, and they
+      proceeded together in silence till they overtook their companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were several pictures in the neighboring room, and Percival Theory
+      and his wife had stopped to look at one of them, of which the cicerone
+      announced the title and the authorship as Benyon came up. It was a modern
+      portrait of a Bourbon princess, a woman young, fair, handsome, covered
+      with jewels. Mrs. Percival appeared to be more struck with it than with
+      anything the palace had yet offered to her sight, while her sister-in-law
+      walked to the window, which the custodian had opened, to look out into the
+      garden. Benyon noticed this; he was conscious that he had given the girl
+      something to reflect upon, and his ears burned a little as he stood beside
+      Mrs. Percival and looked up, mechanically, at the royal lady. He already
+      repented a little of what he had said, for, after all, what was the use?
+      And he hoped the others wouldn&rsquo;t observe that he had been making love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gracious, Percival! Do you see who she looks like?&rdquo; Mrs. Theory said to
+      her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She looks like a woman who has run up a big bill at Tiffany&rsquo;s,&rdquo; this
+      gentleman answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She looks like my sister-in-law; the eyes, the mouth, the way the hair&rsquo;s
+      done,&mdash;the whole thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which do you mean? You have got about a dozen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Georgina, of course,&mdash;Georgina Roy. She&rsquo;s awfully like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call <i>her</i> your sister-in-law?&rdquo; Percival Theory asked. &ldquo;You
+      must want very much to claim her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she&rsquo;s handsome enough. You have got to invent some new name, then.
+      Captain Benyon, what do you call your brother-in-law&rsquo;s second wife?&rdquo; Mrs.
+      Percival continued, turning to her neighbor, who still stood staring at
+      the portrait. At first he had looked without seeing; then sight, and
+      hearing as well, became quick. They were suddenly peopled with thrilling
+      recognitions. The Bourbon princess&mdash;the eyes, the mouth, the way the
+      hair was done; these things took on an identity, and the gaze of the
+      painted face seemed to fasten itself to his own. But who in the world was
+      Georgina Roy, and what was this talk about sisters-in-law? He turned to
+      the little lady at his side a countenance unexpectedly puzzled by the
+      problem she had airily presented to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your brother-in-law&rsquo;s second wife? That&rsquo;s rather complicated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, of course, he need n&rsquo;t have married again?&rdquo; said Mrs. Percival,
+      with a small sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom did he marry?&rdquo; asked Benyon, staring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Percival Theory had turned away. &ldquo;Oh, if you are going into her
+      relationships!&rdquo; he murmured, and joined his sister at the brilliant
+      window, through which, from the distance, the many-voiced uproar of Naples
+      came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He married first my sister Dora, and she died five years ago. Then he
+      married <i>her</i>,&rdquo; and Mrs. Percival nodded at the princess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon&rsquo;s eyes went back to the portrait; he could see what she meant&mdash;it
+      stared out at him. &ldquo;Her? Georgina?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Georgina Gressie. Gracious, do you know her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was very distinct&mdash;that answer of Mrs. Percival&rsquo;s, and the
+      question that followed it as well. But he had the resource of the picture;
+      he could look at it, seem to take it very seriously, though it danced up
+      and down before him. He felt that he was turning red, then he felt that he
+      was turning pale. &ldquo;The brazen impudence!&rdquo; That was the way he could speak
+      to himself now of the woman he had once loved, and whom he afterwards
+      hated, till this had died out, too. Then the wonder of it was lost in the
+      quickly growing sense that it would make a difference for him,&mdash;a
+      great difference. Exactly what, he didn&rsquo;t see yet; only a difference that
+      swelled and swelled as he thought of it, and caught up, in its expansion,
+      the girl who stood behind him so quietly, looking into the Italian garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The custodian drew Mrs. Percival away to show her another princess, before
+      Benyon answered her last inquiry. This gave him time to recover from his
+      first impulse, which had been to answer it with a negative; he saw in a
+      moment that an admission of his acquaintance with Mrs. Roy (Mrs. Roy!&mdash;it
+      was prodigious!) was necessarily helping him to learn more. Besides, it
+      needn&rsquo;t be compromising. Very likely Mrs. Percival would hear one day that
+      he had once wanted to marry her. So, when he joined his companions a
+      minute later he remarked that he had known Miss Gressie years before, and
+      had even admired her considerably, but had lost sight of her entirely in
+      later days. She had been a great beauty, and it was a wonder that she had
+      not married earlier. Five years ago, was it? No, it was only two. He had
+      been going to say that in so long a time it would have been singular he
+      should not have heard of it. He had been away from New York for ages; but
+      one always heard of marriages and deaths. This was a proof, though two
+      years was rather long. He led Mrs. Percival insidiously into a further
+      room, in advance of the others, to whom the cicerone returned. She was
+      delighted to talk about her &ldquo;connections,&rdquo; and she supplied him with every
+      detail He could trust himself now; his self-possession was complete, or,
+      so far as it was wanting, the fault was that of a sudden gayety which he
+      could not, on the spot, have accounted for. Of course it was not very
+      flattering to them&mdash;Mrs. Percivals own people&mdash;that poor Dora&rsquo;s
+      husband should have consoled himself; but men always did it (talk of
+      widows!) and he had chosen a girl who was&mdash;well, very fine-looking,
+      and the sort of successor to Dora that they needn&rsquo;t be ashamed of. She had
+      been awfully admired, and no one had understood why she had waited so long
+      to marry. She had had some affair as a girl,&mdash;an engagement to an
+      officer in the army,&mdash;and the man had jilted her, or they had
+      quarrelled, or something or other. She was almost an old maid,&mdash;well,
+      she was thirty, or very nearly,&mdash;but she had done something good now.
+      She was handsomer than ever, and tremendously stylish. William Roy had one
+      of the biggest incomes in the city, and he was quite affectionate. He had
+      been intensely fond of Dora&mdash;he often spoke of her still, at least to
+      her own relations; and her portrait, the last time Mrs. Percival was in
+      his house (it was at a party, after his marriage to Miss Gressie), was
+      still in the front parlor.. Perhaps by this time he had had it moved to
+      the back; but she was sure he would keep it somewhere, anyway. Poor Dora
+      had had no children; but Georgina was making that all right,&mdash;she had
+      a beautiful boy. Mrs. Percival had what she would have called quite a
+      pleasant chat with Captain Benyon about Mrs. Roy. Perhaps <i>he</i> was
+      the officer&mdash;she never thought of that? He was sure he had never
+      jilted her? And he had never quarrelled with a lady? Well, he must be
+      different from most men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He certainly had the air of being so, before he parted that afternoon with
+      Kate Theory. This young lady, at least, was free to think him wanting in
+      that consistency which is supposed to be a distinctively masculine virtue.
+      An hour before, he had taken an eternal farewell of her, and now he was
+      alluding to future meetings, to future visits, proposing that, with her
+      sister-in-law, she should appoint an early day for coming to see the
+      &ldquo;Louisiana.&rdquo; She had supposed she understood him, but it would appear now
+      that she had not understood him at all. His manner had changed, too. More
+      and more off his guard, Raymond Benyon was not aware how much more hopeful
+      an expression it gave him, his irresistible sense that somehow or other
+      this extraordinary proceeding of his wife&rsquo;s would set him free. Kate
+      Theory felt rather weary and mystified,&mdash;all the more for knowing
+      that henceforth Captain Benyon&rsquo;s variations would be the most important
+      thing in life for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This officer, on his ship in the bay, lingered very late on deck that
+      night,&mdash;lingered there, indeed, under the warm southern sky, in which
+      the stars glittered with a hot, red light, until the early dawn began to
+      show. He smoked cigar after cigar, he walked up and down by the hour, he
+      was agitated by a thousand reflections, he repeated to himself that it
+      made a difference,&mdash;an immense difference; but the pink light had
+      deepened in the east before he had discovered in what the diversity
+      consisted. By that time he saw it clearly,&mdash;it consisted in
+      Georgina&rsquo;s being in his power now, in place of his being in hers. He
+      laughed as he sat there alone in the darkness at the thought of what she
+      had done. It had occurred to him more than once that she would do it,&mdash;he
+      believed her capable of anything; but the accomplished fact had a
+      freshness of comicality. He thought of Mr. William Roy, of his big income,
+      of his being &ldquo;quite affectionate,&rdquo; of his blooming son and heir, of his
+      having found such a worthy successor to poor Mrs. Dora. He wondered
+      whether Georgina had happened to mention to him that she had a husband
+      living, but was strongly of the belief that she had not. Why should she,
+      after all? She had neglected to mention it to so many others. He had
+      thought he knew her, in so many years,&mdash;that he had nothing more to
+      learn about her; but this ripe stroke revived his sense of her audacity.
+      Of course it was what she had been waiting for, and if she had not done it
+      sooner it was because she had hoped he would be lost at sea in one of his
+      long cruises and relieve her of the necessity of a crime. How she must
+      hate him to-day for not having been lost, for being alive, for continuing
+      to put her in the wrong! Much as she hated him, however, his own loathing
+      was at least a match for hers. She had done him the foulest of wrongs,&mdash;she
+      had ravaged his life. That he should ever detest in this degree a woman
+      whom he had once loved as he loved her, he would not have thought possible
+      in his innocent younger years. But he would not have thought it possible
+      then that a woman should be such a cold-blooded devil as she had been. His
+      love had perished in his rage,&mdash;his blinding, impotent rage at
+      finding that he had been duped, and measuring his impotence. When he
+      learned, years before, from Mrs. Portico, what she had done with her baby,
+      of whose entrance into life she herself had given him no intimation, he
+      felt that he was face to face with a full revelation of her nature. Before
+      that it had puzzled him; it had amazed him; his relations with her were
+      bewildering, stupefying. But when, after obtaining, with difficulty and
+      delay, a leave of absence from Government, and betaking himself to Italy
+      to look for the child and assume possession of it, he had encountered
+      absolute failure and defeat,&mdash;then the case presented itself to him
+      more simply. He perceived that he had mated himself with a creature who
+      just happened to be a monster, a human exception altogether. That was what
+      he could n&rsquo;t pardon&mdash;her conduct about the child; never, never,
+      never! To him she might have done what she chose,&mdash;dropped him,
+      pushed him out into eternal cold, with his hands fast tied,&mdash;and he
+      would have accepted it, excused her almost, admitted that it had been his
+      business to mind better what he was about. But she had tortured him
+      through the poor little irrecoverable son whom he had never seen, through
+      the heart and the vitals that she had not herself, and that he had to
+      have, poor wretch, for both of them!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All his efforts for years had been to forget these horrible months, and he
+      had cut himself off from them so that they seemed at times to belong to
+      the life of another person. But to-night he lived them over again; he
+      retraced the different gradations of darkness through which he had passed,
+      from the moment, so soon after his extraordinary marriage, when it came
+      over him that she already repented, and meant, if possible, to elude all
+      her obligations. This was the moment when he saw why she had reserved
+      herself&mdash;in the strange vow she extracted from him&mdash;an open door
+      for retreat; the moment, too, when her having had such an inspiration (in
+      the midst of her momentary good faith, if good faith it had ever been)
+      struck him as a proof of her essential depravity. What he had tried to
+      forget came back to him: the child that was not his child produced for him
+      when he fell upon that squalid nest of peasants in the Genoese country;
+      and then the confessions, retractations, contradictions, lies, terrors,
+      threats, and general bottomless, baffling baseness of every one in the
+      place. The child was gone; that had been the only definite thing. The
+      woman who had taken it to nurse had a dozen different stories,&mdash;her
+      husband had as many,&mdash;and every one in the village had a hundred
+      more. Georgina had been sending money,&mdash;she had managed, apparently,
+      to send a good deal,&mdash;and the whole country seemed to have been
+      living on it and making merry. At one moment the baby had died and
+      received a most expensive burial; at another he had been intrusted (for
+      more healthy air, Santissima Madonna!) to the woman&rsquo;s cousin in another
+      village. According to a version, which for a day or two Benyon had
+      inclined to think the least false, he had been taken by the cousin (for
+      his beauty&rsquo;s sake) to Genoa (when she went for the first time in her life
+      to the town to see her daughter in service there), and had been confided
+      for a few hours to a third woman, who was to keep him while the cousin
+      walked about the streets, but who, having no child of her own, took such a
+      fancy to him that she refused to give him up, and a few days later left
+      the place (she was a Pisana) never to be heard of more. The cousin had
+      forgotten her name,&mdash;it had happened six months before. Benyon spent
+      a year looking up and down Italy for his child, and inspecting hundreds of
+      swaddled infants, impenetrable candidates for recognition. Of course he
+      could only get further and further from real knowledge, and his search was
+      arrested by the conviction that it was making him mad. He set his teeth
+      and made up his mind (or tried to) that the baby had died in the hands of
+      its nurse. This was, after all, much the likeliest supposition, and the
+      woman had maintained it, in the hope of being rewarded for her candor,
+      quite as often as she had asseverated that it was still, somewhere, alive,
+      in the hope of being remunerated for her good news. It may be imagined
+      with what sentiments toward his wife Benyon had emerged from this episode.
+      To-night his memory went further back,&mdash;back to the beginning and to
+      the days when he had had to ask himself, with all the crudity of his first
+      surprise, what in the name of wantonness she had wished to do with him.
+      The answer to this speculation was so old,&mdash;it had dropped so ont of
+      the line of recurrence,&mdash;that it was now almost new again. Moreover,
+      it was only approximate, for, as I have already said, he could comprehend
+      such conduct as little at the end as at the beginning. She had found
+      herself on a slope which her nature forced her to descend to the bottom.
+      She did him the honor of wishing to enjoy his society, and she did herself
+      the honor of thinking that their intimacy&mdash;however brief&mdash;must
+      have a certain consecration. She felt that, with him, after his promise
+      (he would have made any promise to lead her on), she was secure,&mdash;secure
+      as she had proved to be, secure as she must think herself now. That
+      security had helped her to ask herself, after the first flush of passion
+      was over, and her native, her twice-inherited worldliness had bad time to
+      open its eyes again, why she should keep faith with a man whose
+      deficiencies (as a husband before the world&mdash;another affair) had been
+      so scientifically exposed to her by her parents. So she had simply
+      determined not to keep faith; and her determination, at least, she did
+      keep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time Benyon turned in he had satisfied himself, as I say, that
+      Georgina was now in his power; and this seemed to him such an improvement
+      in his situation that he allowed himself (for the next ten days) a license
+      which made Kate Theory almost as happy as it made her sister, though she
+      pretended to understand it far less. Mildred sank to her rest, or rose to
+      fuller comprehensions, within the year, in the Isle of Wight, and Captain
+      Benyon, who had never written so many letters as since they left Naples,
+      sailed westward about the same time as the sweet survivor. For the
+      &ldquo;Louisiana&rdquo; at last was ordered home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Certainly, I will see you if you come, and you may appoint any day or hour
+      you like. I should have seen you with pleasure any time these last years.
+      Why should we not be friends, as we used to be? Perhaps we shall be yet. I
+      say &ldquo;perhaps&rdquo; only, on purpose,&mdash;because your note is rather vague
+      about your state of mind. Don&rsquo;t come with any idea about making me nervous
+      or uncomfortable. I am not nervous by nature, thank Heaven, and I won&rsquo;t&mdash;I
+      positively won&rsquo;t (do you hear, dear Captain Benyon?)&mdash;be
+      uncomfortable. I have been so (it served me right) for years and years;
+      but I am very happy now. To remain so is the very definite intention of,
+      yours ever,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina Roy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the answer Benyon received to a short letter that he despatched
+      to Mrs. Roy after his return to America. It was not till he had been there
+      some weeks that he wrote to her. He had been occupied in various ways: he
+      had had to look after his ship; he had had to report at Washington; he had
+      spent a fortnight with his mother at Portsmouth, N. H.; and he had paid a
+      visit to Kate Theory in Boston. She herself was paying visits, she was
+      staying with various relatives and friends. She had more color&mdash;it
+      was very delicately rosy&mdash;than she had had of old, in spite of her
+      black dress; and the effect of looking at him seemed to him to make her
+      eyes grow still prettier. Though sisterless now, she was not without
+      duties, and Benyon could easily see that life would press hard on her
+      unless some one should interfere. Every one regarded her as just the
+      person to do certain things. Every one thought she could do everything,
+      because she had nothing else to do. She used to read to the blind, and,
+      more onerously, to the deaf. She looked after other people&rsquo;s children
+      while the parents attended anti-slavery conventions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was coming to New York later to spend a week at her brother&rsquo;s, but
+      beyond this she didn&rsquo;t know what she should do. Benyon felt it to be
+      awkward that he should not be able, just now, to tell her; and this had
+      much to do with his coming to the point, for he accused himself of having
+      rather hung fire. Coming to the point, for Benyon, meant writing a note to
+      Mrs. Roy (as he must call her), in which he asked whether she would see
+      him if he should present himself. The missive was short; it contained, in
+      addition to what I have noted, little more than the remark that he had
+      something of importance to say to her. Her reply, which we have just read,
+      was prompt. Benyon designated an hour, and the next day rang the doorbell
+      of her big modern house, whose polished windows seemed to shine defiance
+      at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he stood on the steps, looking up and down the straight vista of the
+      Fifth Avenue, he perceived that he was trembling a little, that <i>he</i>
+      was nervous, if she was not. He was ashamed of his agitation, and he
+      addressed himself a very stern reprimand. Afterwards he saw that what had
+      made him nervous was not any doubt of the goodness of his cause, but his
+      revived sense (as he drew near her) of his wife&rsquo;s hardness,&mdash;her
+      capacity for insolence. He might only break himself against that, and the
+      prospect made him feel helpless. She kept him waiting for a long time
+      after he had been introduced; and as he walked up and down her
+      drawing-room, an immense, florid, expensive apartment, covered with blue
+      satin, gilding, mirrors and bad frescos, it came over him as a certainty
+      that her delay was calculated. She wished to annoy him, to weary him; she
+      was as ungenerous as she was unscrupulous. It never occurred to him that
+      in spite of the bold words of her note, she, too, might be in a tremor,
+      and if any one in their secret bad suggested that she was afraid to meet
+      him, he would have laughed at this idea. This was of bad omen for the
+      success of his errand; for it showed that he recognized the ground of her
+      presumption,&mdash;his having the superstition of old promises. By the
+      time she appeared, he was flushed,&mdash;very angry. She closed the door
+      behind her, and stood there looking at him, with the width of the room
+      between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first emotion her presence excited was a quick sense of the strange
+      fact that, after all these years of loneliness, such a magnificent person
+      should be his wife. For she was magnificent, in the maturity of her
+      beauty, her head erect, her complexion splendid, her auburn tresses
+      undimmed, a certain plenitude in her very glance. He saw in a moment that
+      she wished to seem to him beautiful, she had endeavored to dress herself
+      to the best effect. Perhaps, after all, it was only for this she had
+      delayed; she wished to give herself every possible touch. For some moments
+      they said nothing; they had not stood face to face for nearly ten years,
+      and they met now as adversaries. No two persons could possibly be more
+      interested in taking each other&rsquo;s measure. It scarcely belonged to
+      Georgina, however, to have too much the air of timidity; and after a
+      moment, satisfied, apparently, that she was not to receive a broadside,
+      she advanced, slowly rubbing her jewelled hands and smiling. He wondered
+      why she should smile, what thought was in her mind. His impressions
+      followed each other with extraordinary quickness of pulse, and now he saw,
+      in addition to what he had already perceived, that she was waiting to take
+      her cue,&mdash;she had determined on no definite line. There was nothing
+      definite about her but her courage; the rest would depend upon him. As for
+      her courage, it seemed to glow in the beauty which grew greater as she
+      came nearer, with her eyes on his and her fixed smile; to be expressed in
+      the very perfume that accompanied her steps. By this time he had got still
+      a further impression, and it was the strangest of all. She was ready for
+      anything, she was capable of anything, she wished to surprise him with her
+      beauty, to remind him that it belonged, after all, at the bottom of
+      everything, to him. She was ready to bribe him, if bribing should be
+      necessary. She had carried on an intrigue before she was twenty; it would
+      be more, rather than less, easy for her, now that she was thirty. All this
+      and more was in her cold, living eyes, as in the prolonged silence they
+      engaged themselves with his; but I must not dwell upon it, for reasons
+      extraneous to the remarkable fact She was a truly amazing creature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Raymond!&rdquo; she said, in a low voice, a voice which might represent either
+      a vague greeting or an appeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took no heed of the exclamation, but asked her why she had deliberately
+      kept him waiting,&mdash;as if she had not made a fool enough of him
+      already. She could n&rsquo;t suppose it was for his pleasure he had come into
+      the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated a moment,&mdash;still with her smile. &ldquo;I must tell you I
+      have a son,&mdash;the dearest little boy. His nurse happened to be engaged
+      for the moment, and I had to watch him. I am more devoted to him than you
+      might suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He fell back from her a few steps. &ldquo;I wonder if you are insane,&rdquo; he
+      murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To allude to my child? Why do you ask me such questions then? I tell you
+      the simple truth. I take every care of this one. I am older and wiser. The
+      other one was a complete mistake; he had no right to exist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you kill him then with your own hands, instead of that
+      torture?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did n&rsquo;t I kill myself? That question would be more to the point You
+      are looking wonderfully well,&rdquo; she broke off in another tone; &ldquo;had n&rsquo;t we
+      better sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did n&rsquo;t come here for the advantage of conversation,&rdquo; Benyon answered.
+      And he was going on, but she interrupted him&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You came to say something dreadful, very likely; though I hoped you would
+      see it was better not But just tell me this before you begin. Are you
+      successful, are you happy? It has been so provoking, not knowing more
+      about you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something in the manner in which this was said that caused him
+      to break into a loud laugh; whereupon she added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your laugh is just what it used to be. How it comes back to me! You <i>have</i>
+      improved in appearance,&rdquo; she went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had seated herself, though he remained standing; and she leaned back
+      in a low, deep chair, looking up at him, with her arms folded. He stood
+      near her and over her, as it were, dropping his baffled eyes on her, with
+      his hand resting on the corner of the chimney-piece. &ldquo;Has it never
+      occurred to you that I may deem myself absolved from the promise made you
+      before I married you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very often, of course. But I have instantly dismissed the idea. How can
+      you be &lsquo;absolved&rsquo;? One promises, or one doesn&rsquo;t. I attach no meaning to
+      that, and neither do you.&rdquo; And she glanced down to the front of her dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon listened, but he went on as if he had not heard her. &ldquo;What I came
+      to say to you is this: that I should like your consent to my bringing a
+      suit for divorce against you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A suit for divorce? I never thought of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that I may marry another woman. I can easily obtain a divorce on the
+      ground of your desertion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stared a moment, then her smile solidified, as it were, and she looked
+      grave; but he could see that her gravity, with her lifted eyebrows, was
+      partly assumed. &ldquo;Ah, you want to marry another woman!&rdquo; she exclaimed,
+      slowly, thoughtfully. He said nothing, and she went on: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you do
+      as I have done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I don&rsquo;t want my children to be&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he could say the words she sprang up, checking him with a cry.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say it; it is n&rsquo;t necessary! Of course I know what you mean; but
+      they won&rsquo;t be if no one knows it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should object to knowing it myself; it&rsquo;s enough for me to know it of
+      yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I have been prepared for your saying that&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should hope so!&rdquo; Benyon exclaimed. &ldquo;You may be a bigamist if it suits
+      you, but to me the idea is not attractive. I wish to marry&mdash;&rdquo; and,
+      hesitating a moment, with his slight stammer, he repeated, &ldquo;I wish to
+      marry&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marry, then, and have done with it!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Roy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could already see that he should be able to extract no consent from
+      her; he felt rather sick. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s extraordinary to me that you should n&rsquo;t be
+      more afraid of being found out,&rdquo; he said after a moment&rsquo;s reflection.
+      &ldquo;There are two or three possible accidents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know how much afraid I am? I have thought of every accident,
+      in dreadful nights. How do you know what my life is, or what it has been
+      all these miserable years?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look wasted and worn, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, don&rsquo;t compliment me!&rdquo; Georgina exclaimed. &ldquo;If I had never known you&mdash;if
+      I had not been through all this&mdash;I believe I should have been
+      handsome. When did you hear of my marriage? Where were you at the time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Naples, more than six months ago, by a mere chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How strange that it should have taken you so long! Is the lady a
+      Neapolitan? They don&rsquo;t mind what they do over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no information to give you beyond what I just said,&rdquo; Benyon
+      rejoined. &ldquo;My life does n&rsquo;t in the least regard you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but it does from the moment I refuse to let you divorce me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You refuse?&rdquo; Benyon said softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t look at me that way! You have n&rsquo;t advanced so rapidly as I used to
+      think you would; you haven&rsquo;t distinguished yourself so much,&rdquo; she went on,
+      irrelevantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be promoted commodore one of these days,&rdquo; Benyon answered. &ldquo;You
+      don&rsquo;t know much about it, for my advancement has already been very
+      exceptionally rapid.&rdquo; He blushed as soon as the words were out of his
+      mouth. She gave a light laugh on seeing it; but he took up his hat and
+      added: &ldquo;Think over a day or two what I have proposed to you. Think of the
+      temper in which I ask it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The temper?&rdquo; she stared. &ldquo;Pray, what have you to do with temper?&rdquo; And as
+      he made no reply, smoothing his hat with his glove, she went on: &ldquo;Years
+      ago, as much as you please I you had a good right, I don&rsquo;t deny, and you
+      raved, in your letters, to your heart&rsquo;s content That&rsquo;s why I would n&rsquo;t see
+      you; I did n&rsquo;t wish to take it full in the face. But that&rsquo;s all over now,
+      time is a healer, you have cooled off, and by your own admission you have
+      consoled yourself. Why do you talk to me about temper! What in the world
+      have I done to you, but let you alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you call this business?&rdquo; Benyon asked, with his eye flashing all
+      over the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, excuse me, that doesn&rsquo;t touch you,&mdash;it&rsquo;s my affair. I leave you
+      your liberty, and I can live as I like. If I choose to live in this way,
+      it may be queer (I admit it is, awfully), but you have nothing to say to
+      it. If I am willing to take the risk, you may be. If I am willing to play
+      such an infernal trick upon a confiding gentleman (I will put it as
+      strongly as you possibly could), I don&rsquo;t see what you have to say to it
+      except that you are tremendously glad such a woman as that is n&rsquo;t known to
+      be your wife!&rdquo; She had been cool and deliberate up to this time; but with
+      these words her latent agitation broke out &ldquo;Do you think I have been
+      happy? Do you think I have enjoyed existence? Do you see me freezing up
+      into a stark old maid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder you stood out so long!&rdquo; said Benyon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder I did. They were bad years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no doubt they were!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could do as you pleased,&rdquo; Georgina went on. &ldquo;You roamed about the
+      world; you formed charming relations. I am delighted to hear it from your
+      own lips. Think of my going back to my father&rsquo;s house&mdash;that family
+      vault&mdash;and living there, year after year, as Miss Gressie! If you
+      remember my father and mother&mdash;they are round in Twelfth Street, just
+      the same&mdash;you must admit that I paid for my folly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never understood you; I don&rsquo;t understand you now,&rdquo; said Benyon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him a moment. &ldquo;I adored you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could damn you with a word!&rdquo; he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment he had spoken she grasped his arm and held up her other hand,
+      as if she were listening to a sound outside the room. She had evidently
+      had an inspiration, and she carried it into instant effect She swept away
+      to the door, flung it open, and passed into the hall, whence her voice
+      came back to Benyon as she addressed a person who was apparently her
+      husband. She had heard him enter the house at his habitual hour, after his
+      long morning at business; the closing of the door of the vestibule had
+      struck her ear. The parlor was on a level with the hall, and she greeted
+      him without impediment. She asked him to come in and be introduced to
+      Captain Benyon, and he responded with due solemnity. She returned in
+      advance of him, her eyes fixed upon Benyon and lighted with defiance, her
+      whole face saying to him, vividly: &ldquo;Here is your opportunity; I give it to
+      you with my own hands. Break your promise and betray me if you dare! You
+      say you can damn me with a word: speak the word and let us see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon&rsquo;s heart beat faster, as he felt that it was indeed a chance; but
+      half his emotion came from the spectacle&mdash;magnificent in its way&mdash;of
+      her unparalleled impudence. A sense of all that he had escaped in not
+      having had to live with her rolled over him like a wave, while he looked
+      strangely at Mr. Roy, to whom this privilege had been vouchsafed. He saw
+      in a moment his successor had a constitution that would carry it. Mr. Roy
+      suggested squareness and solidity; he was a broadbased, comfortable,
+      polished man, with a surface in which the rank tendrils of irritation
+      would not easily obtain a foothold. He had a broad, blank face, a
+      capacious mouth, and a small, light eye, to which, as he entered, he was
+      engaged in adjusting a double gold-rimmed glass. He approached Benyon with
+      a prudent, civil, punctual air, as if he habitually met a good many
+      gentlemen in the course of business, and though, naturally, this was not
+      that sort of occasion he was not a man to waste time in preliminaries.
+      Benyon had immediately the impression of having seen him&mdash;or his
+      equivalent&mdash;a thousand times before. He was middle-aged,
+      fresh-colored, whiskered, prosperous, indefinite. Georgina introduced them
+      to each other. She spoke of Benyon as an old friend whom she had known
+      long before she had known Mr. Roy, who had been very kind to her years
+      ago, when she was a girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s in the navy. He has just come back from a long cruise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hoy shook hands,&mdash;Benyon gave him his before he knew it,&mdash;said
+      he was very happy, smiled, looked at Benyon from head to foot, then at
+      Georgina, then round the room, then back at Benyon again,&mdash;at Benyon,
+      who stood there, without sound or movement, with a dilated eye, and a
+      pulse quickened to a degree of which Mr. Roy could have little idea.
+      Georgina made some remark about their sitting down, but William Roy
+      replied that he had n&rsquo;t time for that,&mdash;if Captain Benyon would
+      excuse him. He should have to go straight into the library, and write a
+      note to send back to his office, where, as he just remembered, he had
+      neglected to give, in leaving the place, an important direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can wait a moment, surely,&rdquo; Georgina said. &ldquo;Captain Benyon wants so
+      much to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, my dear; I can wait a minute, and I can come back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon saw, accordingly, that he was waiting, and that Georgina was
+      waiting too. Each was waiting for him to say something, though they were
+      waiting for different things. Mr. Roy put his hands behind him, balanced
+      himself on his toes, hoped that Captain Benyon had enjoyed his cruise,&mdash;though
+      he should n&rsquo;t care much for the navy himself,&mdash;and evidently wondered
+      at the stolidity of his wife&rsquo;s visitor. Benyon knew he was speaking, for
+      he indulged in two or three more observations, after which he stopped. But
+      his meaning was not present to our hero. This personage was conscious of
+      only one thing, of his own momentary power,&mdash;of everything that hung
+      on his lips; all the rest swam before him; there was vagueness in his ears
+      and eyes. Mr. Roy stopped, as I say, and there was a pause, which seemed
+      to Benyon of tremendous length. He knew, while it lasted, that Georgina
+      was as conscious as himself that he felt his opportunity, that he held it
+      there in his hand, weighing it noiselessly in the palm, and that she
+      braved and scorned, or, rather, that she enjoyed, the danger. He asked
+      himself whether he should be able to speak if he were to try, and then he
+      knew that he should not, that the words would stick in his throat, that he
+      should make sounds that would dishonor his cause. There was no real choice
+      or decision, then, on Benyon&rsquo;s part; his silence was after all the same
+      old silence, the fruit of other hours and places, the stillness to which
+      Georgina listened, while he felt her eager eyes fairly eat into his face,
+      so that his cheeks burned with the touch of them. The moments stood before
+      him in their turn; each one was distinct. &ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; said Mr. Roy,
+      &ldquo;perhaps I interrupt,&mdash;I &lsquo;ll just dash off my note&rdquo; Benyon knew that
+      he was rather bewildered, that he was making a pretext, that he was
+      leaving the room; knew presently that Georgina again stood before him
+      alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are exactly the man I thought you!&rdquo; she announced, as joyously as if
+      she had won a bet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the most horrible woman I can imagine. Good God! if I <i>had</i>
+      had to live with you!&rdquo; That is what he said to her in answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even at this she never flushed; she continued to smile in triumph. &ldquo;He
+      adores me&mdash;but what&rsquo;s that to you? Of course you have all the
+      future,&rdquo; she went on; &ldquo;but I know you as if I had made you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon reflected a moment &ldquo;If he adores you, you are all right. If our
+      divorce is pronounced, you will be free, and then he can marry you
+      properly, which he would like ever so much better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too touching to hear you reason about it. Fancy me telling such a
+      hideous story&mdash;about myself&mdash;me&mdash;<i>me</i>!&rdquo; And she
+      touched her breasts with her white fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon gave her a look that was charged with all the sickness of his
+      helpless rage. &ldquo;You&mdash;<i>you</i>!&rdquo; he repeated, as he turned away from
+      her and passed through the door which Mr. Roy had left open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She followed him into the hall, she was close behind him; he moved before
+      her as she pressed. &ldquo;There was one more reason,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I would n&rsquo;t be
+      forbidden. It was my hideous pride. That&rsquo;s what prevents me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care what it is,&rdquo; Benyon answered, wearily, with his hand on the
+      knob of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid hers on his shoulder; he stood there an instant feeling it,
+      wishing that her loathsome touch gave him the right to strike her to the
+      earth,&mdash;to strike her so that she should never rise again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How clever you are, and intelligent always,&mdash;as you used to be; to
+      feel so perfectly and know so well, without more scenes, that it&rsquo;s
+      hopeless&mdash;my ever consenting! If I have, with you, the shame of
+      having made you promise, let me at least have the profit!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His back had been turned to her, but at this he glanced round. &ldquo;To hear
+      you talk of shame&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know what I have gone through; but, of course, I don&rsquo;t ask any
+      pity from you. Only I should like to say something kind to you before we
+      part I admire you, esteem you: I don&rsquo;t many people! Who will ever tell
+      her, if you don&rsquo;t? How will she ever know, then? She will be as safe as I
+      am. You know what that is,&rdquo; said Georgina, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had opened the door while she spoke, apparently not heeding her,
+      thinking only of getting away from her forever. In reality he heard every
+      word she said, and felt to his marrow the lowered, suggestive tone in
+      which she made him that last recommendation. Outside, on the steps&mdash;she
+      stood there in the doorway&mdash;he gave her his last look. &ldquo;I only hope
+      you will die. I shall pray for that!&rdquo; And he descended into the street and
+      took his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was after this that his real temptation came. Not the temptation to
+      return betrayal for betrayal; that passed away even in a few days, for he
+      simply knew that he couldn&rsquo;t break his promise, that it imposed itself on
+      him as stubbornly as the color of his eyes or the stammer of his lips; it
+      had gone forth into the world to live for itself, and was far beyond his
+      reach or his authority. But the temptation to go through the form of a
+      marriage with Kate Theory, to let her suppose that he was as free as
+      herself, and that their children, if they should have any, would, before
+      the law, have a right to exist,&mdash;this attractive idea held him fast
+      for many weeks, and caused him to pass some haggard nights and days. It
+      was perfectly possible she might learn his secret, and that, as no one
+      could either suspect it or have an interest in bringing it to light, they
+      both might live and die in security and honor. This vision fascinated him;
+      it was, I say, a real temptation. He thought of other solutions,&mdash;of
+      telling her that he was married (without telling her to whom), and
+      inducing her to overlook such an accident, and content herself with a
+      ceremony in which the world would see no flaw. But after all the
+      contortions of his spirit it remained as clear to him as before that
+      dishonor was in everything but renunciation. So, at last, he renounced. He
+      took two steps which attested ths act to himself. He addressed an urgent
+      request to the Secretary of the Navy that he might, with as little delay
+      as possible, be despatched on another long voyage; and he returned to
+      Boston to tell Kate Theory that they must wait. He could explain so little
+      that, say what he would, he was aware that he could not make his conduct
+      seem natural, and he saw that the girl only trusted him,&mdash;that she
+      never understood. She trusted without understanding, and she agreed to
+      wait. When the writer of these pages last heard of the pair they were
+      waiting still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+  </body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgina's Reasons, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Georgina's Reasons
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21771]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGINA'S REASONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+GEORGINA'S REASONS
+
+By Henry James
+
+1885
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+She was certainly a singular girl, and if he felt at the end that he
+did n't know her nor understand her, it is not surprising that he should
+have felt it at the beginning. But he felt at the beginning what he
+did not feel at the end, that her singularity took the form of a charm
+which--once circumstances had made them so intimate--it was impossible
+to resist or conjure away. He had a strange impression (it amounted
+at times to a positive distress, and shot through the sense of
+pleasure--morally speaking--with the acuteness of a sudden twinge of
+neuralgia) that it would be better for each of them that they should
+break off short and never see each other again. In later years he called
+this feeling a foreboding, and remembered two or three occasions when he
+had been on the point of expressing it to Georgina. Of course, in fact,
+he never expressed it; there were plenty of good reasons for that. Happy
+love is not disposed to assume disagreeable duties, and Raymond Benyon's
+love was happy, in spite of grave presentiments, in spite of the
+singularity of his mistress and the insufferable rudeness of her
+parents. She was a tall, fair girl, with a beautiful cold eye and a
+smile of which the perfect sweetness, proceeding from the lips, was full
+of compensation; she had auburn hair of a hue that could be qualified as
+nothing less than gorgeous, and she seemed to move through life with a
+stately grace, as she would have walked through an old-fashioned minuet.
+Gentlemen connected with the navy have the advantage of seeing many
+types of women; they are able to compare the ladies of New York with
+those of Valparaiso, and those of Halifax with those of the Cape of Good
+Hope. Eaymond Benyon had had these advantages, and being very fond
+of women he had learnt his lesson; he was in a position to appreciate
+Georgina Gressie's fine points. She looked like a duchess,--I don't mean
+that in foreign ports Benyon had associated with duchesses,--and she
+took everything so seriously. That was flattering for the young man,
+who was only a lieutenant, detailed for duty at the Brooklyn navy-yard,
+without a penny in the world but his pay, with a set of plain, numerous,
+seafaring, God-fearing relations in New Hampshire, a considerable
+appearance of talent, a feverish, disguised ambition, and a slight
+impediment in his speech.
+
+He was a spare, tough young man, his dark hair was straight and
+fine, and his face, a trifle pale, was smooth and carefully drawn.
+He stammered a little, blushing when he did so, at long intervals.
+I scarcely know how he appeared on shipboard, but on shore, in his
+civilian's garb, which was of the neatest, he had as little as possible
+an aroma of winds and waves. He was neither salt nor brown, nor red, nor
+particularly "hearty." He never twitched up his trousers, nor, so far as
+one could see, did he, with his modest, attentive manner, carry himself
+as one accustomed to command. Of course, as a subaltern, he had more
+to do in the way of obeying. He looked as if he followed some sedentary
+calling, and was, indeed, supposed to be decidedly intellectual. He
+was a lamb with women, to whose charms he was, as I have hinted,
+susceptible; but with men he was different, and, I believe, as much of a
+wolf as was necessary. He had a manner of adoring the handsome, insolent
+queen of his affections (I will explain in a moment why I call
+her insolent); indeed, he looked up to her literally as well as
+sentimentally; for she was the least bit the taller of the two. He had
+met her the summer before, on the piazza of a hotel at Fort Hamilton, to
+which, with a brother officer, in a dusty buggy, he had driven over from
+Brooklyn to spend a tremendously hot Sunday,--the kind of day when the
+navy-yard was loathsome; and the acquaintance had been renewed by his
+calling in Twelfth Street on New-Year's Day,--a considerable time
+to wait for a pretext, but which proved the impression had not been
+transitory. The acquaintance ripened, thanks to a zealous cultivation
+(on his part) of occasions which Providence, it must be confessed,
+placed at his disposal none too liberally; so that now Georgina took
+up all his thoughts and a considerable part of his time. He was in love
+with her, beyond a doubt; but he could not flatter himself that she was
+in love with him, though she appeared willing (what was so strange) to
+quarrel with her family about him. He did n't see how she could really
+care for him,--she seemed marked out by nature for so much greater
+a fortune; and he used to say to her, "Ah, you don't--there's no use
+talking, you don't--really care for me at all!" To which she answered,
+"Really? You are very particular. It seems to me it's real enough if I
+let you touch one of my fingertips! "That was one of her ways of being
+insolent Another was simply her manner of looking at him, or at
+other people (when they spoke to her), with her hard, divine blue
+eye,--looking quietly, amusedly, with the air of considering (wholly
+from her own point of view) what they might have said, and then turning
+her head or her back, while, without taking the trouble to answer them,
+she broke into a short, liquid, irrelevant laugh. This may seem to
+contradict what I said just now about her taking the young lieutenant
+in the navy seriously. What I mean is that she appeared to take him more
+seriously than she took anything else. She said to him once, "At any
+rate you have the merit of not being a shop-keeper;" and it was by this
+epithet she was pleased to designate most of the young men who at that
+time flourished in the best society of New York. Even if she had rather
+a free way of expressing general indifference, a young lady is supposed
+to be serious enough when she consents to marry you. For the rest,
+as regards a certain haughtiness that might be observed in Geoigina
+Gressie, my story will probably throw sufficient light upon it She
+remarked to Benyon once that it was none of his business why she liked
+him, but that, to please herself, she did n't mind telling him she
+thought the great Napoleon, before he was celebrated, before he had
+command of the army of Italy, must have looked something like him;
+and she sketched in a few words the sort of figure she imagined
+the incipient Bonaparte to have been,--short, lean, pale, poor,
+intellectual, and with a tremendous future under his hat Benyon asked
+himself whether _he_ had a tremendous future, and what in the world
+Geoigina expected of him in the coming years. He was flattered at the
+comparison, he was ambitious enough not to be frightened at it, and he
+guessed that she perceived a certain analogy between herself and the
+Empress Josephine. She would make a very good empress. That was true;
+Georgina was remarkably imperial. This may not at first seem to make it
+more clear why she should take into her favor an aspirant who, on the
+face of the matter, was not original, and whose Corsica was a flat New
+England seaport; but it afterward became plain that he owed his brief
+happiness--it was very brief--to her father's opposition; her father's
+and her mother's, and even her uncles' and her aunts'. In those days,
+in New York, the different members of a family took an interest in its
+alliances, and the house of Gressie looked askance at an engagement
+between the most beautiful of its daughters and a young man who was not
+in a paying business. Georgina declared that they were meddlesome and
+vulgar,--she could sacrifice her own people, in that way, without
+a scruple,--and Benyon's position improved from the moment that Mr.
+Gressie--ill-advised Mr. Gressie--ordered the girl to have nothing to do
+with him. Georgina was imperial in this--that she wouldn't put up with
+an order. When, in the house in Twelfth Street, it began to be talked
+about that she had better be sent to Europe with some eligible friend,
+Mrs. Portico, for instance, who was always planning to go, and who
+wanted as a companion some young mind, fresh from manuals and extracts,
+to serve as a fountain of history and geography,--when this scheme for
+getting Georgina out of the way began to be aired, she immediately said
+to Raymond Benyon, "Oh, yes, I 'll marry you!" She said it in such an
+off-hand way that, deeply as he desired her, he was almost tempted to
+answer, "But, my dear, have you really thought about it?"
+
+This little drama went on, in New York, in the ancient days, when
+Twelfth Street had but lately ceased to be suburban, when the squares
+had wooden palings, which were not often painted; when there were
+poplars in important thoroughfares and pigs in the lateral ways; when
+the theatres were miles distant from Madison Square, and the battered
+rotunda of Castle Garden echoed with expensive vocal music; when "the
+park" meant the grass-plats of the city hall, and the Bloomingdale
+road was an eligible drive; when Hoboken, of a summer afternoon, was a
+genteel resort, and the handsomest house in town was on the corner
+of the Fifth Avenue and Fifteenth Street. This will strike the modern
+reader, I fear, as rather a primitive epoch; but I am not sure that the
+strength of human passions is in proportion to the elongation of a city.
+Several of them, at any rate, the most robust and most familiar,--love,
+ambition, jealousy, resentment, greed,--subsisted in considerable force
+in the little circle at which we have glanced, where a view by no means
+favorable was taken of Raymond Benyon's attentions to Miss Gressie.
+Unanimity was a family trait among these people (Georgina was an
+exception), especially in regard to the important concerns of life, such
+as marriages and closing scenes. The Gressies hung together; they
+were accustomed to do well for themselves and for each other. They did
+everything well: got themselves born well (they thought it excellent to
+be born a Gressie), lived well, married well, died well, and managed to
+be well spoken of afterward. In deference to this last-mentioned habit,
+I must be careful what I say of them. They took an interest in each
+other's concerns, an interest that could never be regarded as of a
+meddlesome nature, inasmuch as they all thought alike about all their
+affairs, and interference took the happy form of congratulation and
+encouragement. These affairs were invariably lucky, and, as a general
+thing, no Gressie had anything to do but feel that another Gressie had
+been almost as shrewd and decided as he himself would have been. The
+great exception to that, as I have said, was this case of Georgina, who
+struck such a false note, a note that startled them all, when she told
+her father that she should like to unite herself to a young man engaged
+in the least paying business that any Gressie had ever heard of. Her two
+sisters had married into the most flourishing firms, and it was not
+to be thought of that--with twenty cousins growing up around her--she
+should put down the standard of success. Her mother had told her a
+fortnight before this that she must request Mr. Benyon to cease coming
+to the house; for hitherto his suit had been of the most public and
+resolute character. He had been conveyed up town from the Brooklyn
+ferry, in the "stage," on certain evenings, had asked for Miss Georgina
+at the door of the house in Twelfth Street, and had sat with her in the
+front parlor if her parents happened to occupy the back, or in the back
+if the family had disposed itself in the front. Georgina, in her way,
+was a dutiful girl, and she immediately repeated her mother's admonition
+to Beuyon. He was not surprised, for though he was aware that he had
+not, as yet, a great knowledge of society, he flattered himself he could
+tell when--and where--a young man was not wanted. There were houses in
+Brooklyn where such an animal was much appreciated, and there the signs
+were quite different They had been discouraging--except on Georgina's
+pail--from the first of his calling in Twelfth Street Mr. and Mrs.
+Gressie used to look at each other in silence when he came in, and
+indulge in strange, perpendicular salutations, without any shaking of
+hands. People did that at Portsmouth, N.H., when they were glad to
+see you; but in New York there was more luxuriance, and gesture had a
+different value. He had never, in Twelfth Street, been asked to "take
+anything," though the house had a delightful suggestion, a positive
+aroma, of sideboards,--as if there were mahogany "cellarettes" under
+every table. The old people, moreover, had repeatedly expressed surprise
+at the quantity of leisure that officers in the navy seemed to enjoy.
+The only way in which they had not made themselves offensive was
+by always remaining in the other room; though at times even this
+detachment, to which he owed some delightful moments, presented itself
+to Benyon as a form of disapprobation. Of course, after Mrs. Gressie's
+message, his visits were practically at an end; he would n't give the
+girl up, but he would n't be beholden to her father for the opportunity
+to converse with her. Nothing was left for the tender couple--there
+was a curious mutual mistrust in their tenderness--but to meet in the
+squares, or in the topmost streets, or in the sidemost avenues, on
+the afternoons of spring. It was especially during this phase of their
+relations that Georgina struck Benyon as imperial Her whole person
+seemed to exhale a tranquil, happy consciousness of having broken a law.
+She never told him how she arranged the matter at home, how she found it
+possible always to keep the appointments (to meet him out of the house)
+that she so boldly made, in what degree she dissimulated to her parents,
+and how much, in regard to their continued acquaintance, the old people
+suspected and accepted. If Mr. and Mrs. Gressie had forbidden him the
+house, it was not, apparently, because they wished her to walk with him
+in the Tenth Avenue or to sit at his side under the blossoming lilacs
+in Stuyvesant Square. He didn't believe that she told lies in Twelfth
+Street; he thought she was too imperial to lie; and he wondered what she
+said to her mother when, at the end of nearly a whole afternoon of vague
+peregrination with her lover, this bridling, bristling matron asked her
+where she had been. Georgina was capable of simply telling the truth;
+and yet if she simply told the truth, it was a wonder that she had not
+been simply packed off to Europe.
+
+Benyon's ignorance of her pretexts is a proof that this rather
+oddly-mated couple never arrived at perfect intimacy,--in spite of a
+fact which remains to be related. He thought of this afterwards, and
+thought how strange it was that he had not felt more at liberty to ask
+her what she did for him, and how she did it, and how much she suffered
+for him. She would probably not have admitted that she suffered at all,
+and she had no wish to pose for a martyr. Benyon remembered this, as
+I say, in the after years, when he tried to explain to himself certain
+things which simply puzzled him; it came back to him with the vision,
+already faded, of shabby cross-streets, straggling toward rivers, with
+red sunsets, seen through a haze of dust, at the end; a vista through
+which the figures of a young man and a girl slowly receded and
+disappeared,--strolling side by side, with the relaxed pace of desultory
+talk, but more closely linked as they passed into the distance, linked
+by its at last appearing safe to them--in the Tenth Avenue--that the
+young lady should take his arm. They were always approaching that
+inferior thoroughfare; but he could scarcely have told you, in those
+days, what else they were approaching. He had nothing in the world but
+his pay, and he felt that this was rather a "mean" income to offer Miss
+Gressie. Therefore he did n't put it forward; what he offered, instead,
+was the expression--crude often, and almost boyishly extravagant--of a
+delighted admiration of her beauty, the tenderest tones of his voice,
+the softest assurances of his eye and the most insinuating pressure of
+her hand at those moments when she consented to place it in his arm.
+All this was an eloquence which, if necessary, might have been condensed
+into a single sentence; but those few words were scarcely needful, when
+it was as plain that he expected--in general--she would marry him, as it
+was indefinite that he counted upon her for living on a few hundreds
+a year. If she had been a different girl he might have asked her to
+wait,--might have talked to her of the coming of better days, of his
+prospective promotion, of its being wiser, perhaps, that he should leave
+the navy and look about for a more lucrative career. With Georgina it
+was difficult to go into such questions; she had no taste whatever for
+detail. She was delightful as a woman to love, because when a young man
+is in love he discovers that; but she could not be called helpful, for
+she never suggested anything. That is, she never had done so till the
+day she really proposed--for that was the form it took--to become his
+wife without more delay. "Oh, yes, I will marry you;" these words, which
+I quoted a little way back, were not so much the answer to something he
+had said at the moment, as the light conclusion of a report she had just
+made, for the first time, of her actual situation in her father's house.
+
+"I am afraid I shall have to see less of you," she had begun by saying.
+"They watch me so much."
+
+"It is very little already," he answered. "What is once or twice a
+week?"
+
+"That's easy for you to say. You are your own master, but you don't know
+what I go through."
+
+"Do they make it very bad for you, dearest? Do they make scenes?" Benyon
+asked.
+
+"No, of course not. Don't you know us enough to know how we behave? No
+scenes,--that would be a relief. However, I never make them myself, and
+I never will--that's one comfort for you, for the future, if you want to
+know. Father and mother keep very quiet, looking at me as if I were one
+of the lost, with hard, screwing eyes, like gimlets. To me they scarcely
+say anything, but they talk it all over with each other, and try and
+decide what is to be done. It's my belief that father has written to the
+people in Washington--what do you call it! the Department--to have you
+moved away from Brooklyn,--to have you sent to sea."
+
+"I guess that won't do much good. They want me in Brooklyn, they don't
+want me at sea."
+
+"Well, they are capable of going to Europe for a year, on purpose to
+take me," Geoigina said.
+
+"How can they take you, if you won't go? And if you should go, what good
+would it do, if you were only to find me here when you came back, just
+the same as you left me?"
+
+"Oh, well!" said Georgina, with her lovely smile, "of course they think
+that absence would cure me of--cure me of--" And she paused, with a
+certain natural modesty, not saying exactly of what.
+
+"Cure you of what, darling? Say it, please say it," the young man
+murmured, drawing her hand surreptitiously into his arm.
+
+"Of my absurd infatuation!"
+
+"And would it, dearest?"
+
+"Yes, very likely. But I don't mean to try. I sha'n't go to Europe,--not
+when I don't want to. But it's better I should see less of you,--even
+that I should appear--a little--to give you up."
+
+"A little? What do you call a little?"
+
+Georgina said nothing, for a moment. "Well, that, for instance, you
+should n't hold my hand quite so tight!" And she disengaged this
+conscious member from the pressure of his arm.
+
+"What good will that do?" Benyon asked,
+
+"It will make them think it 's all over,--that we have agreed to part."
+
+"And as we have done nothing of the kind, how will that help us?"
+
+They had stopped at the crossing of a street; a heavy dray was lumbering
+slowly past them. Georgina, as she stood there, turned her face to
+her lover, and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At last:
+"Nothing will help us; I don't think we are very happy," she answered,
+while her strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about her
+beautiful lips.
+
+"I don't understand how you see things. I thought you were going to say
+you would marry me!" Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though the
+dray had passed.
+
+"Oh, yes, I will marry you!" And she moved away, across the street. That
+was the manner in which she had said it, and it was very characteristic
+of her. When he saw that she really meant it, he wished they were
+somewhere else,--he hardly knew where the proper place would be,--so
+that he might take her in his arms. Nevertheless, before they separated
+that day he had said to her he hoped she remembered they would be very
+poor, reminding her how great a change she would find it She answered
+that she should n't mind, and presently she said that if this was all
+that prevented them the sooner they were married the better. The next
+time he saw her she was quite of the same opinion; but he found, to his
+surprise, it was now her conviction that she had better not leave her
+father's house. The ceremony should take place secretly, of course; but
+they would wait awhile to let their union be known.
+
+"What good will it do us, then?" Raymond Benyon asked.
+
+Georgina colored. "Well, if you don't know, I can't tell you!"
+
+Then it seemed to him that he did know. Yet, at the same time, he could
+not see why, once the knot was tied, secrecy should be required. When
+he asked what special event they were to wait for, and what should give
+them the signal to appear as man and wife, she answered that her parents
+would probably forgive her, if they were to discover, not too abruptly,
+after six months, that she had taken the great step. Benyon supposed
+that she had ceased to care whether they forgave her or not; but he
+had already perceived that women are full of inconsistencies. He had
+believed her capable of marrying him out of bravado, but the pleasure of
+defiance was absent if the marriage was kept to themselves. Now, too, it
+appeared that she was not especially anxious to defy,--she was disposed
+rather to manage, to cultivate opportunities and reap the fruits of a
+waiting game.
+
+"Leave it to me. Leave it to me. You are only a blundering man,"
+Georgina said. "I shall know much better than you the right moment for
+saying, 'Well, you may as well make the best of it, because we have
+already done it!'"
+
+That might very well be, but Benyon did n't quite understand, and he was
+awkwardly anxious (for a lover) till it came over him afresh that
+there was one thing at any rate in his favor, which was simply that
+the loveliest girl he had ever seen was ready to throw herself into his
+arms. When he said to her, "There is one thing I hate in this plan of
+yours,--that, for ever so few weeks, so few days, your father should
+support my wife,"--when he made this homely remark, with a little flush
+of sincerity in his face, she gave him a specimen of that unanswerable
+laugh of hers, and declared that it would serve Mr. Gressie right for
+being so barbarous and so horrid. It was Benyon's view that from the
+moment she disobeyed her father, she ought to cease to avail herself
+of his protection; but I am bound to add that he was not particularly
+surprised at finding this a kind of honor in which her feminine
+nature was little versed. To make her his wife first--at the earliest
+moment--whenever she would, and trust to fortune, and the new influence
+he should have, to give him, as soon thereafter as possible, complete
+possession of her,--this rather promptly presented itself to the young
+man as the course most worthy of a person of spirit. He would be only
+a pedant who would take nothing because he could not get everything at
+once. They wandered further than usual this afternoon, and the dusk was
+thick by the time he brought her back to her father's door. It was not
+his habit to como so near it, but to-day they had so much to talk about
+that he actually stood with her for ten minutes at the foot of the
+steps. He was keeping her hand in his, and she let it rest there while
+she said,--by way of a remark that should sum up all their reasons and
+reconcile their differences,--
+
+"There's one great thing it will do, you know; it will make me safe."
+
+"Safe from what?"
+
+"From marrying any one else."
+
+"Ah, my girl, if you were to do that--!" Benyon exclaimed; but he did
+n't mention the other branch of the contingency. Instead of this, he
+looked up at the blind face of the house--there were only dim lights in
+two or three windows, and no apparent eyes--and up and down the empty
+street, vague in the friendly twilight; after which he drew Georgina
+Gressie to his breast and gave her a long, passionate kiss. Yes,
+decidedly, he felt, they had better be married. She had run quickly up
+the steps, and while she stood there, with her hand on the bell, she
+almost hissed at him, under her breath, "Go away, go away; Amanda's
+coming!" Amanda was the parlor-maid, and it was in those terms that the
+Twelfth Street Juliet dismissed her Brooklyn Romeo. As he wandered back
+into the Fifth Avenue, where the evening air was conscious of a vernal
+fragrance from the shrubs in the little precinct of the pretty Gothic
+church ornamenting that charming part of the street, he was too absorbed
+in the impression of the delightful contact from which the girl had
+violently released herself to reflect that the great reason she had
+mentioned a moment before was a reason for their marrying, of course,
+but not in the least a reason for their not making it public. But, as I
+said in the opening lines of this chapter, if he did not understand his
+mistress's motives at the end, he cannot be expected to have understood
+them at the beginning.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Mrs. Portico, as we know, was always talking about going to Europe;
+but she had not yet--I mean a year after the incident I have just
+related--put her hand upon a youthful cicerone. Petticoats, of course,
+were required; it was necessary that her companion should be of the sex
+which sinks most naturally upon benches, in galleries and cathredrals,
+and pauses most frequently upon staircases that ascend to celebrated
+views. She was a widow, with a good fortune and several sons, all of
+whom were in Wall Street, and none of them capable of the relaxed pace
+at which she expected to take her foreign tour. They were all in a state
+of tension. They went through life standing. She was a short, broad,
+high-colored woman, with a loud voice, and superabundant black hair,
+arranged in a way peculiar to herself,--with so many combs and bands
+that it had the appearance of a national coiffure. There was an
+impression in New York, about 1845, that the style was Danish; some one
+had said something about having seen it in Schleswig-Holstein.
+
+Mrs. Portico had a bold, humorous, slightly flamboyant look; people who
+saw her for the first time received an impression that her late husband
+had married the daughter of a barkeeper or the proprietress of a
+menageria. Her high, hoarse, good-natured voice seemed to connect her in
+some way with public life; it was not pretty enough to suggest that she
+might have been an actress. These ideas quickly passed away, however,
+even if you were not sufficiently initiated to know--as all the
+Grossies, for instance, knew so well--that her origin, so far from
+being enveloped in mystery, was almost the sort of thing she might have
+boasted of. But in spite of the high pitch of her appearance, she didn't
+boast of anything; she was a genial, easy, comical, irreverent person,
+with a large charity, a democratic, fraternizing turn of mind, and a
+contempt for many worldly standards, which she expressed not in the
+least in general axioms (for she had a mortal horror of philosophy), but
+in violent ejaculations on particular occasions. She had not a grain of
+moral timidity, and she fronted a delicate social problem as sturdily as
+she would have barred the way of a gentleman she might have met in her
+vestibule with the plate-chest The only thing which prevented her being
+a bore in orthodox circles was that she was incapable of discussion. She
+never lost her temper, but she lost her vocabulary, and ended quietly
+by praying that Heaven would give her an opportunity to _show_ what she
+believed.
+
+She was an old friend of Mr. and Mrs. Gressie, who esteemed her for the
+antiquity of her lineage and the frequency of her subscriptions, and to
+whom she rendered the service of making them feel liberal,--like
+people too sure of their own position to be frightened. She was their
+indulgence, their dissipation, their point of contact with dangerous
+heresies; so long as they continued to see her they could not be accused
+of being narrow-minded,--a matter as to which they were perhaps vaguely
+conscious of the necessity of taking their precautions. Mrs. Portico
+never asked herself whether she liked the Gressies; she had no
+disposition for morbid analysis, she accepted transmitted associations,
+and she found, somehow, that her acquaintance with these people helped
+her to relieve herself. She was always making scenes in their
+drawing-room, scenes half indignant, half jocose, like all her
+manifestations, to which it must be confessed that they adapted
+themselves beautifully. They never "met" her in the language of
+controversy; but always collected to watch her, with smiles and
+comfortable platitudes, as if they envied her superior richness of
+temperament She took an interest in Georgina, who seemed to her
+different from the others, with suggestions about her of being likely
+not to marry so unrefreshingly as her sisters had done, and of a high,
+bold standard of duty. Her sisters had married from duty, but Mrs.
+Portico would rather have chopped off one of her large, plump hands than
+behave herself so well as that She had, in her daughterless condition, a
+certain ideal of a girl that should be beautiful and romantic, with
+lustrous eyes, and a little persecuted, so that she, Mrs. Portico, might
+get her out of her troubles. She looked to Georgina, to a considerable
+degree, to gratify her in this way; but she had really never understood
+Geoigina at all She ought to have been shrewd, but she lacked this
+refinement, and she never understood anything until after many
+disappointments and vexations. It was difficult to startle her, but she
+was much startled by a communication that this young lady made her one
+fine spring morning. With her florid appearance and her speculative
+mind, she was probably the most innocent woman in New York.
+
+Georgina came very early,--earlier even than visits were paid in New
+York thirty years ago; and instantly, without any preface, looking her
+straight in the face, told Mrs. Portico that she was in great trouble
+and must appeal to her for assistance. Georgina had in her aspect no
+symptom of distress; she was as fresh and beautiful as the April
+day itself; she held up her head and smiled, with a sort of familiar
+bravado, looking like a young woman who would naturally be on good terms
+with fortune. It was not in the least in the tone of a person making a
+confession or relating a misadventure that she presently said: "Well,
+you must know, to begin with--of course, it will surprise you--that I 'm
+married."
+
+"Married, Georgina Grossie!" Mrs. Portico repeated in her most resonant
+tones.
+
+Georgina got up, walked with her majestic step across the room, and
+closed the door. Then she stood there, her back pressed against the
+mahogany panels, indicating only by the distance she had placed between
+herself and her hostess the consciousness of an irregular position. "I
+am not Georgina Gressie! I am Georgina Benyon,--and it has become plain,
+within a short time, that the natural consequence will take place."
+
+Mrs. Portico was altogether bewildered. "The natural consequence?" she
+exclaimed, staring.
+
+"Of one's being married, of course,--I suppose you know what that is. No
+one must know anything about it. I want you to take me to Europe."
+
+Mrs. Portico now slowly rose from her place, and approached her visitor,
+looking at her from head to foot as she did so, as if to challenge the
+truth of her remarkable announcement. She rested her hands on Georgina's
+shoulders a moment, gazing into her blooming face, and then she drew her
+closer and kissed her. In this way the girl was conducted back to the
+sofa, where, in a conversation of extreme intimacy, she opened Mrs.
+Portico's eyes wider than they had ever been opened before. She was
+Raymond Benyon's wife; they had been married a year, but no one knew
+anything about it. She had kept it from every one, and she meant to go
+on keeping it. The ceremony had taken place in a little Episcopal church
+at Harlem, one Sunday afternoon, after the service. There was no one in
+that dusty suburb who knew them; the clergyman, vexed at being detained,
+and wanting to go home to tea, had made no trouble; he tied the knot
+before they could turn round. It was ridiculous how easy it had been.
+Raymond had told him frankly that it must all be under the rose, as the
+young lady's family disapproved of what she was doing. But she was of
+legal age, and perfectly free; he could see that for himself. The parson
+had given a grunt as he looked at her over his spectacles. It was not
+very complimentary; it seemed to say that she was indeed no chicken. Of
+course she looked old for a girl; but she was not a girl now, was she?
+Raymond had certified his own identity as an officer in the United
+States Navy (he had papers, besides his uniform, which he wore), and
+introduced the clergyman to a friend he had brought with him, who was
+also in the navy, a venerable paymaster. It was he who gave Georgina
+away, as it were; he was an old, old man, a regular grandmother, and
+perfectly safe. He had been married three times himself. After the
+ceremony she went back to her father's; but she saw Mr. Benyon the next
+day. After that, she saw him--for a little while--pretty often. He
+was always begging her to come to him altogether; she must do him that
+justice. But she wouldn't--she wouldn't now--perhaps she would n't
+ever. She had her reasons, which seemed to her very good, but were very
+difficult to explain. She would tell Mrs. Portico in plenty of time what
+they were. But that was not the question now, whether they were good or
+bad; the question was for her to get away from the country for several
+months,--far away from any one who had ever known her. She would like
+to go to some little place in Spain or Italy, where she should be out of
+the world until everything was over.
+
+Mrs. Portico's heart gave a jump as this serene, handsome, familiar
+girl, sitting there with a hand in hers, and pouring forth this
+extraordinary tale, spoke of everything being over. There was a glossy
+coldness in it, an unnatural lightness, which suggested--poor Mrs.
+Portico scarcely knew what. If Georgina was to become a mother, it
+was to be supposed she was to remain a mother. She said there was a
+beautiful place in Italy--Genoa--of which Raymond had often spoken--and
+where he had been more than once,--he admired it so much; could n't
+they go there and be quiet for a little while? She was asking a great
+favor,--that she knew very well; but if Mrs. Portico would n't take her,
+she would find some one who would. They had talked of such a journey
+so often; and, certainly, if Mrs. Portico had been willing before, she
+ought to be much more willing now. The girl declared that she must do
+something,--go somewhere,--keep, in one way or another, her situation
+unperceived. There was no use talking to her about telling,--she would
+rather die than tell. No doubt it seemed strange, but she knew what she
+was about. No one had guessed anything yet,--she had succeeded perfectly
+in doing what she wished,--and her father and mother believed--as Mrs.
+Portico had believed,--had n't she?--that, any time the last year,
+Raymond Beuyon was less to her than he had been before. Well, so he was;
+yes, he was. He had gone away--he was off, Heaven knew where--in the
+Pacific; she was alone, and now she would remain alone. The family
+believed it was all over,--with his going back to his ship, and other
+things, and they were right: for it _was_ over, or it would be soon.
+
+Mrs. Portico, by this time, had grown almost afraid of her young friend;
+_she_ had so little fear, she had even, as it were, so little shame. If
+the good lady had been accustomed to analyzing things a little more,
+she would have said she had so little conscience. She looked at Georgina
+with dilated eyes,--her visitor was so much the calmer of the two,--and
+exclaimed, and murmured, and sunk back, and sprung forward, and wiped
+her forehead with her pocket-handkerchief! There were things she didn't
+understand; that they should all have been so deceived, that they should
+have thought Georgina was giving her lover up (they flattered themselves
+she was discouraged, or had grown tired of him), when she was really
+only making it impossible she should belong to any one else. And with
+this, her inconsequence, her capriciousness, her absence of motive, the
+way she contradicted herself, her apparent belief that she could hush up
+such a situation forever! There was nothing shameful in having married
+poor Mr. Benyon, even in a little church at Harlem, and being given away
+by a paymaster. It was much more shameful to be in such a state without
+being prepared to make the proper explanations. And she must have
+seen very little of her husband; she must have given him up--so far
+as meeting him went--almost as soon as she had taken him. Had not Mrs.
+Gressie herself told Mrs. Portico (in the preceding October, it must
+have been) that there now would be no need of sending Georgina away,
+inasmuch as the affair with the little navy man--a project in every way
+so unsuitable--had quite blown over?
+
+"After our marriage I saw him less, I saw him a great deal less,"
+Georgina explained; but her explanation only appeared to make the
+mystery more dense.
+
+"I don't see, in that case, what on earth you married him for!"
+
+"We had to be more careful; I wished to appear to have given him up. Of
+course we were really more intimate,--I saw him differently," Georgina
+said, smiling.
+
+"I should think so! I can't for the life of me see why you were n't
+discovered."
+
+"All I can say is we weren't No doubt it's remarkable. We managed very
+well,--that is, I managed,--he did n't want to manage at all. And then,
+father and mother are incredibly stupid!"
+
+Mrs. Portico exhaled a comprehensive moan, feeling glad, on the whole,
+that she had n't a daughter, while Georgina went on to furnish a few
+more details. Raymond Benyon, in the summer, had been ordered from
+Brooklyn to Charlestown, near Boston, where, as Mrs. Portico perhaps
+knew, there was another navy-yard, in which there was a temporary press
+of work, requiring more oversight He had remained there several months,
+during which he had written to her urgently to come to him, and during
+which, as well, he had received notice that he was to rejoin his ship a
+little later. Before doing so he came back to Brooklyn for a few weeks
+to wind up his work there, and then she had seen him--well, pretty
+often. That was the best time of all the year that had elapsed since
+their marriage. It was a wonder at home that nothing had then been
+guessed; because she had really been reckless, and Benyon had even tried
+to force on a disclosure. But they _were_ stupid, that was very certain.
+He had besought her again and again to put an end to their false
+position, but she did n't want it any more than she had wanted it
+before. They had rather a bad parting; in fact, for a pair of lovers, it
+was a very queer parting indeed. He did n't know, now, the thing she had
+come to tell Mrs. Portico. She had not written to him. He was on a very
+long cruise. It might be two years before he returned to the United
+States. "I don't care how long he stays away," Georgina said, very
+simply.
+
+"You haven't mentioned why you married him. Perhaps you don't remember,"
+Mrs. Portico broke out, with her masculine laugh.
+
+"Oh, yes; I loved him!"
+
+"And you have got over that?"
+
+Georgina hesitated a moment. "Why, no, Mrs. Portico, of course I
+haven't; Raymond's a splendid fellow."
+
+"Then why don't you live with him? You don't explain that."
+
+"What would be the use when he's always away? How can one live with a
+man that spends half his life in the South Seas? If he was n't in
+the navy it would be different; but to go through everything,--I mean
+everything that making our marriage known would bring upon me,--the
+scolding and the exposure and the ridicule, the scenes at home,--to go
+through it all, just for the idea, and yet be alone here, just as I
+was before, without my husband after all,--with none of the good of
+him,"--and here Georgina looked at her hostess as if with the
+certitude that such an enumeration of inconveniences would touch her
+effectually,--"really, Mrs. Portico, I am bound to say I don't think
+that would be worth while; I haven't the courage for it."
+
+"I never thought you were a coward," said Mrs. Portico.
+
+"Well, I am not,--if you will give me time. I am very patient."
+
+"I never thought that, either."
+
+"Marrying changes one," said Georgina, still smiling.
+
+"It certainly seems to have had a very peculiar effect upon you. Why
+don't you make him leave the navy, and arrange your life comfortably,
+like every one else?"
+
+"I would n't for the world interfere with his prospects--with his
+promotion. That is sure to come for him, and to come quickly, he has
+such talents. He is devoted to his profession; it would ruin him to
+leave it."
+
+"My dear young woman, you are a wonderful creature!" Mrs. Portico
+exclaimed, looking at her companion as if she had been in a glass case.
+
+"So poor Raymond says," Georgina answered, smiling more than ever.
+
+"Certainly, I should have been very sorry to marry a navy man; but if I
+had married him, I should stick to him, in the face of all the scoldings
+in the universe!"
+
+"I don't know what your parents may have been; I know what mine are,",
+Georgina replied, with some dignity. "When he's a captain, we shall come
+out of hiding."
+
+"And what shall you do meanwhile? What will you do with your children?
+Where will you hide them? What will you do with this one?"
+
+Georgina rested her eyes on her lap for a minute; then, raising them,
+she met those of Mrs. Portico. "Somewhere in Europe," she said, in her
+sweet tone.
+
+"Georgina Gressie, you 're a monster!" the elder lady cried.
+
+"I know what I am about, and you will help me," the girl went on.
+
+"I will go and tell your father and mother the whole story,--that's what
+I will do!"
+
+"I am not in the least afraid of that, not in the least. You will help
+me,--I assure you that you will."
+
+"Do you mean I will support the child?"
+
+Georgina broke into a laugh. "I do believe you would, if I were to ask
+you! But I won't go so far as that; I have something of my own. All I
+want you to do is to be with me."
+
+"At Genoa,--yes, you have got it all fixed! You say Mr. Benyon is so
+fond of the place. That's all very well; but how will he like his infant
+being deposited there?"
+
+"He won't like it at all. You see I tell you the whole truth," said
+Georgina, gently.
+
+"Much obliged; it's a pity you keep it all for me! It is in his power,
+then, to make you behave properly. _He_ can publish your marriage if you
+won't; and if he does you will have to acknowledge your child."
+
+"Publish, Mrs. Portico? How little you know my Raymond! He will never
+break a promise; he will go through fire first."
+
+"And what have you got him to promise?'
+
+"Never to insist on a disclosure against my will; never to claim me
+openly as his wife till I think it is time; never to let any one know
+what has passed between us if I choose to keep it still a secret--to
+keep it for years--to keep it forever. Never to do anything in the
+matter himself, but to leave it to me. For this he has given me his
+solemn word of honor. And I know what that means!"
+
+Mrs. Portico, on the sofa, fairly bounded.
+
+"You _do_ know what you are about And Mr. Benyon strikes me as more
+fantastic even than yourself. I never heard of a man taking such an
+imbecile vow. What good can it do him?"
+
+"What good? The good it did him was that, it gratified me. At the
+time he took it he would have made any promise under the sun. It was
+a condition I exacted just at the very last, before the marriage took
+place. There was nothing at that moment he would have refused me;
+there was nothing I could n't have made him do. He was in love to that
+degree--but I don't want to boast," said Georgina, with quiet grandeur.
+"He wanted--he wanted--" she added; but then she paused.
+
+"He does n't seem to have wanted much!" Mrs. Portico cried, in a tone
+which made Georgina turn to the window, as if it might have reached the
+street.
+
+Her hostess noticed the movement and went on: "Oh, my dear, if I ever do
+tell your story, I will tell it so that people will hear it!"
+
+"You never will tell it. What I mean is, that Raymond wanted the
+sanction--of the affair at the church--because he saw that I would never
+do without it. Therefore, for him, the sooner we had it the better, and,
+to hurry it on, he was ready to take any pledge."
+
+"You have got it pat enough," said Mrs. Portico, in homely phrase. "I
+don't know what you mean by sanctions, or what _you_ wanted of 'em!"
+
+Georgina got up, holding rather higher than before that beautiful head
+which, in spite of the embarrassments of this interview, had not yet
+perceptibly abated of its elevation. "Would you have liked me to--to not
+marry?"
+
+Mrs. Portico rose also, and, flushed with the agitation of unwonted
+knowledge,--it was as if she had discovered a skeleton in her favorite
+cupboard,--faced her young friend for a moment. Then her conflicting
+sentiments resolved themselves into an abrupt question, uttered,--for
+Mrs. Portico,--with much solemnity: "Georgina Gressie, were you really
+in love with him?"
+
+The question suddenly dissipated the girl's strange, studied, wilful
+coldness; she broke out, with a quick flash of passion,--a passion that,
+for the moment, was predominantly anger, "Why else, in Heaven's name,
+should I have done what I have done? Why else should I have married him?
+What under the sun had I to gain?"
+
+A certain quiver in Georgina's voice, a light in her eye which seemed to
+Mrs. Portico more spontaneous, more human, as she uttered these words,
+caused them to affect her hostess rather less painfully than anything
+she had yet said. She took the girl's hand and emitted indefinite,
+admonitory sounds. "Help me, my dear old friend, help me," Georgina
+continued, in a low, pleading tone; and in a moment Mrs. Portico saw
+that the tears were in her eyes.
+
+"You 're a queer mixture, my child," she exclaimed. "Go straight home to
+your own mother, and tell her everything; that is your best help."
+
+"You are kinder than my mother. You must n't judge her by yourself."
+
+"What can she do to you? How can she hurt you? We are not living in
+pagan times," said Mrs. Portico, who was seldom so historical "Besides,
+you have no reason to speak of your mother--to think of her, even--so!
+She would have liked you to marry a man of some property; but she has
+always been a good mother to you."
+
+At this rebuke Georgina suddenly kindled again; she was, indeed, as Mrs.
+Portico had said, a queer mixture. Conscious, evidently, that she could
+not satisfactorily justify her present stiffness, she wheeled round upon
+a grievance which absolved her from self-defence. "Why, then, did he
+make that promise, if he loved me? No man who really loved me would have
+made it,--and no man that was a man, as I understand being a man! He
+might have seen that I only did it to test him,--to see if he wanted to
+take advantage of being left free himself. It is a proof that he does
+n't love me,--not as he ought to have done; and in such a case as that a
+woman is n't bound to make sacrifices!"
+
+Mrs. Portico was not a person of a nimble intellect; her mind moved
+vigorously, but heavily; yet she sometimes made happy guesses. She saw
+that Georgia's emotions were partly real and partly fictitious; that,
+as regards this last matter, especially, she was trying to "get up" a
+resentment, in order to excuse herself. The pretext was absurd, and the
+good lady was struck with its being heartless on the part of her young
+visitor to reproach poor Benyon with a concession on which she had
+insisted, and which could only be a proof of his devotion, inasmuch as
+he left her free while he bound himself. Altogether, Mrs. Portico was
+shocked and dismayed at such a want of simplicity in the behavior of a
+young person whom she had hitherto believed to be as candid as she was
+elegant, and her appreciation of this discovery expressed itself in the
+uncompromising remark: "You strike me as a very bad girl, my dear; you
+strike me as a very bad girl!"
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+It will doubtless seem to the reader very singular that, in spite of
+this reflection, which appeared to sum up her judgment of the matter,
+Mrs. Portico should, in the course of a very few days, have consented to
+everything that Georgina asked of her. I have thought it well to narrate
+at length the first conversation that took place between them, but I
+shall not trace further the details of the girl's hard pleading, or
+the steps by which--in the face of a hundred robust and salutary
+convictions--the loud, kind, sharp, simple, sceptical, credulous woman
+took under her protection a damsel whose obstinacy she could not speak
+of without getting red with anger. It was the simple fact of Georgina's
+personal condition that moved her; this young lady's greatest eloquence
+was the seriousness of her predicament She might be bad, and she had a
+splendid, careless, insolent, fair-faced way of admitting it, which at
+moments, incoherently, inconsistently, and irresistibly, resolved the
+harsh confession into tears of weakness; but Mrs. Portico had known her
+from her rosiest years, and when Georgina declared that she could n't go
+home, that she wished to be with her and not with her mother, that she
+could n't expose herself,--how could she?--and that she must remain with
+her and her only till the day they should sail, the poor lady was forced
+to make that day a reality. She was overmastered, she was cajoled,
+she was, to a certain extent, fascinated. She had to accept Georgina's
+rigidity (she had none of her own to oppose to it; she was only violent,
+she was not continuous), and once she did this, it was plain, after all,
+that to take her young friend to Europe was to help her, and to leave
+her alone was not to help her. Georgina literally frightened Mrs.
+Portico into compliance. She was evidently capable of strange things if
+thrown upon her own devices.
+
+So, from one day to another Mrs. Portico announced that she was really
+at last about to sail for foreign lands (her doctor having told her that
+if she did n't look out she would get too old to enjoy them), and that
+she had invited that robust Miss Gressie, who could stand so long on her
+feet, to accompany her. There was joy in the house of Gressie at this
+announcement, for though the danger was over, it was a great general
+advantage to Georgina to go, and the Gressies were always elated at the
+prospect of an advantage. There was a danger that she might meet Mr.
+Benyon on the other side of the world; but it didn't seem likely that
+Mrs. Portico would lend herself to a plot of that kind. If she had taken
+it into her head to favor their love affair, she would have done
+it frankly, and Georgina would have been married by this time. Her
+arrangements were made as quickly as her decision had been--or rather
+had appeared--slow; for this concerned those agile young men down town.
+Georgina was perpetually at her house; it was understood in Twelfth
+Street that she was talking over her future travels with her kind
+friend. Talk there was, of course to a considerable degree; but after it
+was settled they should start nothing more was said about the motive
+of the journey. Nothing was said, that is, till the night before they
+sailed; then a few words passed between them. Georgina had already
+taken leave of her relations in Twelfth Street, and was to sleep at
+Mrs. Portico's in order to go down to the ship at an early hour. The
+two ladies were sitting together in the firelight, silent, with the
+consciousness of corded luggage, when the elder one suddenly remarked to
+her companion that she seemed to be taking a great deal upon herself in
+assuming that Raymond Benyon wouldn't force her hand. _He_ might
+choose to acknowledge his child, if she didn't; there were promises
+and promises, and many people would consider they had been let off when
+circumstances were so altered. She would have to reckon with Mr. Benyon
+more than she thought.
+
+"I know what I am about," Georgina answered. "There is only one promise,
+for him. I don't know what you mean by circumstances being altered."
+
+"Everything seems to me to be changed," poor Mrs. Portico murmured,
+rather tragically.
+
+"Well, he is n't, and he never will! I am sure of him,--as sure as that
+I sit here. Do you think I would have looked at him if I had n't known
+he was a man of his word?"
+
+"You have chosen him well, my dear," said Mrs. Portico, who by this time
+was reduced to a kind of bewildered acquiescence.
+
+"Of course I have chosen him well! In such a matter as this he will be
+perfectly splendid." Then suddenly, "Perfectly splendid,--that's why I
+cared for him!" she repeated, with a flash of incongruous passion.
+
+This seemed to Mrs. Portico audacious to the point of being sublime; but
+she had given up trying to understand anything that the girl might
+say or do. She understood less and less, after they had disembarked in
+England and begun to travel southward; and she understood least of all
+when, in the middle of the winter, the event came off with which, in
+imagination, she had tried to familiarize herself, but which, when it
+occurred, seemed to her beyond measure strange and dreadful. It took
+place at Genoa, for Georgina had made up her mind that there would be
+more privacy in a big town than in a little; and she wrote to America
+that both Mrs. Portico and she had fallen in love with the place and
+would spend two or three months there. At that time people in the United
+States knew much less than to-day about the comparative attractions
+of foreign cities, and it was not thought surprising that absent
+New Yorkers should wish to linger in a seaport where they might find
+apartments, according to Georgina's report, in a palace painted in
+fresco by Vandyke and Titian. Georgina, in her letters, omitted, it will
+be seen, no detail that could give color to Mrs. Portico's long stay at
+Genoa. In such a palace--where the travellers hired twenty gilded rooms
+for the most insignificant sum--a remarkably fine boy came into the
+world. Nothing could have been more successful and comfortable than
+this transaction. Mrs. Portico was almost appalled at the facility and
+felicity of it. She was by this time in a pretty bad way, and--what
+had never happened to her before in her life--she suffered from chronic
+depression of spirits. She hated to have to lie, and now she was lying
+all the time. Everything she wrote home, everything that had been said
+or done in connection with their stay in Genoa, was a lie. The way
+they remained indoors to avoid meeting chance compatriots was a lie.
+Compatriots, in Genoa, at that period, were very rare; but nothing could
+exceed the businesslike completeness of Georgina's precautions. Her
+nerves, her self-possession, her apparent want of feeling, excited on
+Mrs. Portico's part a kind of gloomy suspense; a morbid anxiety to see
+how far her companion would go took possession of the excellent woman,
+who, a few months before, hated to fix her mind on disagreeable things.
+
+Georgina went very far indeed; she did everything in her power to
+dissimulate the origin of her child. The record of its birth was made
+under a false name, and he was baptized at the nearest church by a
+Catholic priest. A magnificent contadina was brought to light by
+the doctor in a village in the hills, and this big, brown, barbarous
+creature, who, to do her justice, was full of handsome, familiar smiles
+and coarse tenderness, was constituted nurse to Raymond Benyon's son.
+She nursed him for a fortnight under the mother's eye, and she was then
+sent back to her village with the baby in her arms and sundry gold coin
+knotted into a corner of her rude pocket-handkerchief. Mr. Gressie had
+given his daughter a liberal letter of credit on a London banker, and
+she was able, for the present, to make abundant provision for the little
+one. She called Mrs. Portico's attention to the fact that she spent none
+of her money on futilities; she kept it all for her small pensioner
+in the Genoese hills. Mrs. Portico beheld these strange doings with a
+stupefaction that occasionally broke into passionate protest; then she
+relapsed into a brooding sense of having now been an accomplice so far
+that she must be an accomplice to the end. The two ladies went down to
+Rome--Georgina was in wonderful trim--to finish the season, and
+here Mrs. Portico became convinced that she intended to abandon her
+offspring. She had not driven into the country to see the nursling
+before leaving Genoa,--she had said that she could n't bear to see it in
+such a place and among such people. Mrs. Portico, it must be added,
+had felt the force of this plea,--felt it as regards a plan of her own,
+given up after being hotly entertained for a few hours, of devoting a
+day, by herself, to a visit to the big contadina. It seemed to her that
+if she should see the child in the sordid hands to which Georgina had
+consigned it she would become still more of a participant than she was
+already. This young woman's blooming hardness, after they got to Borne,
+acted upon her like a kind of Medusa-mask. She had seen a horrible
+thing, she had been mixed up with it, and her motherly heart had
+received a mortal chill. It became more clear to her every day that,
+though Georgina would continue to send the infant money in considerable
+quantities, she had dispossessed herself of it forever. Together with
+this induction a fixed idea settled in her mind,--the project of taking
+the baby herself, of making him her own, of arranging that matter with
+the father. The countenance she had given Georgina up to this point was
+an effective pledge that she would not expose her; but she could adopt
+the child without exposing her; she could say that he was a lovely
+baby--he was lovely, fortunately--whom she had picked up in a poor
+village in Italy,--a village that had been devastated by brigands. She
+would pretend--she could pretend; oh, yes, of course, she could pretend!
+Everything was imposture now, and she could go on to lie as she had
+begun. The falsity of the whole business sickened her; it made her so
+yellow that she scarcely knew herself in her glass. None the less, to
+rescue the child, even if she had to become falser still, would be in
+some measure an atonement for the treachery to which she had already
+lent herself. She began to hate Georgina, who had drawn her into such an
+atrocious current, and if it had not been for two considerations she
+would have insisted on their separating. One was the deference she owed
+to Mr. and Mrs. Gressie, who had reposed such a trust in her; the other
+was that she must keep hold of the mother till she had got possession of
+the infant Meanwhile, in this forced communion, her aversion to her
+companion increased; Georgina came to appear to her a creature of brass,
+of iron; she was exceedingly afraid of her, and it seemed to her now a
+wonder of wonders that she should ever have trusted her enough to come
+so far. Georgina showed no consciousness of the change in Mrs. Portico,
+though there was, indeed, at present, not even a pretence of confidence
+between the two. Miss Gressie--that was another lie, to which Mrs.
+Portico had to lend herself--was bent on enjoying Europe, and was
+especially delighted with Rome. She certainly had the courage of her
+undertaking, and she confessed to Mrs. Portico that she had left Raymond
+Benyon, and meant to continue to leave him, in ignorance of what had
+taken place at Genoa. There was a certain confidence, it must be said,
+in that. He was now in Chinese waters, and she probably should not see
+him for years.
+
+Mrs. Portico took counsel with herself, and the result of her cogitation
+was, that she wrote to Mr. Benyon that a charming little boy had
+been born to him, and that Georgina had put him to nurse with Italian
+peasants, but that, if he would kindly consent to it, she, Mrs. Portico,
+would bring him up much better than that. She knew not how to address
+her letter, and Georgina, even if _she_ should know, which was doubtful,
+would never tell her; so she sent the missive to the care of the
+Secretary of the Navy, at Washington, with an earnest request that it
+might immediately be forwarded. Such was Mrs. Portico's last effort in
+this strange business of Georgina's. I relate rather a complicated
+fact in a very few words when I say that the poor lady's anxieties,
+indignations, repentances, preyed upon her until they fairly broke her
+down. Various persons whom she knew in Borne notified her that the air
+of the Seven Hills was plainly unfavorable to her, and she had made
+up her mind to return to her native land, when she found that, in her
+depressed condition, malarial fever had laid its hand upon her. She was
+unable to move, and the matter was settled for her in the course of an
+illness which, happily, was not prolonged. I have said that she was not
+obstinate, and the resistance that she made on the present occasion
+was not worthy even of her spasmodic energy. Brain-fever made its
+appearance, and she died at the end of three weeks, during which
+Georgina's attentions to her patient and protectress had been
+unremitting. There were other Americans in Rome who, after this
+sad event, extended to the bereaved young lady every comfort and
+hospitality. She had no lack of opportunities for returning under a
+proper escort to New York. She selected, you may be sure, the best, and
+re-entered her father's house, where she took to plain dressing; for she
+sent all her pocket-money, with the utmost secrecy, to the little boy in
+the Genoese hills.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+"Why should he come if he doesn't like you? He is under no obligation,
+and he has his ship to look after. Why should he sit for an hour at a
+time, and why should he be so pleasant?"
+
+"Do you think he is very pleasant?" Kate Theory asked, turning away her
+face from her sister. It was important that Mildred should not see how
+little the expression of that charming countenance corresponded with the
+inquiry.
+
+This precaution was useless, however, for in a moment Mildred said, from
+the delicately draped couch, where she lay at the open window, "Kate
+Theory, don't be affected!"
+
+"Perhaps it's for you he comes. I don't see why he should n't; you are
+far more attractive than I, and you have a great deal more to say. How
+can he help seeing that you are the cleverest of the clever? You can
+talk to him of everything: of the dates of the different eruptions, of
+the statues and bronzes in the Museum, which you have never seen, poor
+darling! but which you know more about than he does, than any one does.
+What was it you began on last time? Oh, yes, you poured forth floods
+about Magna Graecia. And then--and then--" But with this Kate Theory
+paused; she felt it would n't do to speak the words that had risen to
+her lips. That her sister was as beautiful as a saint, and as delicate
+and refined as an angel,--she had been on the point of saying something
+of that sort But Mildred's beauty and delicacy were the fairness of
+mortal disease, and to praise her for her refinement was simply to
+intimate that she had the tenuity of a consumptive. So, after she had
+checked herself, the younger girl--she was younger only by a year
+or two--simply kissed her tenderly, and settled the knot of the lace
+handkerchief that was tied over her head. Mildred knew what she had
+been going to say,--knew why she had stopped. Mildred knew everything,
+without ever leaving her room, or leaving, at least, that little salon
+of their own, at the _pension_, which she had made so pretty by simply
+lying there, at the window that had the view of the bay and of Vesuvius,
+and telling Kate how to arrange and rearrange everything. Since it
+began to be plain that Mildred must spend her small remnant of years
+altogether in warm climates, the lot of the two sisters had been cast in
+the ungarnished hostelries of southern Europe. Their little sitting-room
+was sure to be very ugly, and Mildred was never happy till it was
+rearranged. Her sister fell to work, as a matter of course, the first
+day, and changed the place of all the tables, sofas, chairs, till every
+combination had been tried, and the invalid thought at last that there
+was a little effect Kate Theory had a taste of her own, and her ideas
+were not always the same as her sister's; but she did whatever Mildred
+liked, and if the poor girl had told her to put the doormat on the
+dining-table, or the clock under the sofa, she would have obeyed without
+a murmur. Her own ideas, her personal tastes, had been folded up and put
+away, like garments out of season, in drawers and trunks, with camphor
+and lavender. They were not, as a general thing, for southern wear,
+however indispensable to comfort in the climate of New England, where
+poor Mildred had lost her health. Kate Theory, ever since this event,
+had lived for her companion, and it was almost an inconvenience for her
+to think that she was attractive to Captain Benyon. It was as if she
+had shut up her house and was not in a position to entertain. So long as
+Mildred should live, her own life was suspended; if there should be
+any time afterwards, perhaps she would take it up again; but for the
+present, in answer to any knock at her door, she could only call down
+from one of her dusty windows that she was not at home. Was it really in
+these terms she should have to dismiss Captain Benyon? If Mildred said
+it was for her he came she must perhaps take upon herself such a duty;
+for, as we have seen, Mildred knew everything, and she must therefore be
+right She knew about the statues in the Museum, about the excavations at
+Pompeii, about the antique splendor of Magna Graecia. She always had some
+instructive volume on the table beside her sofa, and she had strength
+enough to hold the book for half an hour at a time. That was about the
+only strength she had now. The Neapolitan winters had been remarkably
+soft, but after the first month or two she had been obliged to give up
+her little walks in the garden. It lay beneath her window like a single
+enormous bouquet; as early as May, that year, the flowers were so dense.
+None of them, however, had a color so intense as the splendid blue of
+the bay, which filled up all the rest of the view. It would have looked
+painted, if you had not been able to see the little movement of the
+waves. Mildred Theory watched them by the hour, and the breathing crest
+of the volcano, on the other side of Naples, and the great sea-vision
+of Capri, on the horizon, changing its tint while her eyes rested there,
+and wondered what would become of her sister after she was gone. Now
+that Percival was married,--he was their only brother, and from one day
+to the other was to come down to Naples to show them his new wife, as
+yet a complete stranger, or revealed only in the few letters she had
+written them during her wedding tour,--now that Percival was to be quite
+taken up, poor Kate's situation would be much more grave. Mildred felt
+that she should be able to judge better, after she should have seen her
+sister-in-law, how much of a home Kate might expect to find with the
+pair; but even if Agnes should prove--well, more satisfactory than her
+letters, it was a wretched prospect for Kate,--this living as a mere
+appendage to happier people. Maiden aunts were very well, but being a
+maiden aunt was only a last resource, and Kate's first resources had not
+even been tried.
+
+Meanwhile the latter young lady wondered as well,--wondered in what book
+Mildred had read that Captain Benyon was in love with her. She admired
+him, she thought, but he didn't seem a man that would fall in love with
+one like that She could see that he was on his guard; he would n't throw
+himself away. He thought too much of himself, or at any rate he took
+too good care of himself,--in the manner of a man to whom something had
+happened which had given him a lesson. Of course what had happened was
+that his heart was buried somewhere,--in some woman's grave; he had
+loved some beautiful girl,--much more beautiful, Kate was sure, than
+she, who thought herself small and dark,--and the maiden had died, and
+his capacity to love had died with her. He loved her memory,--that was
+the only thing he would care for now. He was quiet, gentle, clever,
+humorous, and very kind in his manner; but if any one save Mildred had
+said to her that if he came three times a week to Posilippo, it was for
+anything but to pass his time (he had told them he didn't know another
+soul in Naples), she would have felt that this was simply the kind of
+thing--usually so idiotic--that people always thought it necessary to
+say. It was very easy for him to come; he had the big ship's boat, with
+nothing else to do; and what could be more delightful than to be rowed
+across the bay, under a bright awning, by four brown sailors with
+"Louisiana" in blue letters on their immaculate white shirts, and in gilt
+letters on their fluttering hat ribbons? The boat came to the steps of
+the garden of the _pension_, where the orange-trees hung over and made
+vague yellow balls shine back out of the water. Kate Theory knew all
+about that, for Captain Benyon had persuaded her to take a turn in the
+boat, and if they had only had another lady to go with them, he could
+have conveyed her to the ship, and shown her all over it It looked
+beautiful, just a little way off, with the American flag hanging loose
+in the Italian air. They would have another lady when Agnes should
+arrive; then Percival would remain with Mildred while they took this
+excursion. Mildred had stayed alone the day she went in the boat;
+she had insisted on it, and, of course it was really Mildred who had
+persuaded her; though now that Kate came to think of it, Captain Benyon
+had, in his quiet, waiting way--he turned out to be waiting long after
+you thought he had let a thing pass--said a good deal about the pleasure
+it would give him. Of course, everything would give pleasure to a man
+who was so bored. He was keeping the "Louisiana" at Naples, week after
+week, simply because these were the commodore's orders. There was no
+work to be done there, and his time was on his hands; but of course the
+commodore, who had gone to Constantinople with the two other ships, had
+to be obeyed to the letter, however mysterious his motives. It made no
+difference that he was a fantastic, grumbling, arbitrary old commodore;
+only a good while afterwards it occurred to Kate Theory that, for a
+reserved, correct man, Captain Benyon had given her a considerable
+proof of confidence, in speaking to her in these terms of his superior
+officer. If he looked at all hot when he arrived at the _pension_,
+she offered him a glass of cold "orangeade." Mildred thought this an
+unpleasant drink,--she called it messy; but Kate adored it, and Captain
+Benyon always accepted it.
+
+The day I speak of, to change the subject, she called her sister's
+attention to the extraordinary sharpness of a zigzagging cloud-shadow,
+on the tinted slope of Vesuvius; but Mildred only remarked in answer
+that she wished her sister would many the captain. It was in this
+familiar way that constant meditation led Miss Theory to speak of him;
+it shows how constantly she thought of him, for, in general, no one was
+more ceremonious than she, and the failure of her health had not caused
+her to relax any form that it was possible to keep up. There was a kind
+of slim erectness, even in the way she lay on her sofa; and she always
+received the doctor as if he were calling for the first time.
+
+"I had better wait till he asks me," Kate Theory said. "Dear Milly, if
+I were to do some of the things you wish me to do, I should shock you
+very much."
+
+"I wish he would marry you, then. You know there is very little time, if
+I wish to see it."
+
+"You will never see it, Mildred. I don't see why you should take so for
+granted that I would accept him."
+
+"You will never meet a man who has so few disagreeable qualities. He is
+probably not enormously rich. I don't know what is the pay of a captain
+in the navy--"
+
+"It's a relief to find there is something you don't know," Kate Theory
+broke in.
+
+"But when I am gone," her sister went on calmly, "when I am gone there
+will be plenty for both of you."
+
+The younger sister, at this, was silent for a moment; then she
+exclaimed, "Mildred, you may be out of health, but I don't see why you
+should be dreadful!"
+
+"You know that since we have been leading this life we have seen no
+one we liked better," said Milly. When she spoke of the life they were
+leading--there was always a soft resignation of regret and contempt in
+the allusion--she meant the southern winters, the foreign climates,
+the vain experiments, the lonely waitings, the wasted hours, the
+interminable rains, the bad food, the pottering, humbugging doctors,
+the damp _pensions_, the chance encounters, the fitful apparitions, of
+fellow-travellers.
+
+"Why should n't you speak for yourself alone? I am glad _you_ like him,
+Mildred."
+
+"If you don't like him, why do you give him orangeade?"
+
+At this inquiry Kate began to laugh, and her sister continued,--
+
+"Of course you are glad I like him, my dear. If I did n't like him, and
+you did, it would n't be satisfactory at all. I can imagine nothing more
+miserable; I should n't die in any sort of comfort."
+
+Kate Theory usually checked this sort of allusion--she was always too
+late--with a kiss; but on this occasion she added that it was a long
+time since Mildred had tormented her so much as she had done to-day.
+"You will make me hate him," she added.
+
+"Well, that proves you don't already," Milly rejoined; and it happened
+that almost at this moment they saw, in the golden afternoon, Captain
+Benyon's boat approaching the steps at the end of the garden. He came
+that day, and he came two days later, and he came yet once again after
+an interval equally brief, before Percival Theory arrived, with Mrs.
+Percival, from Borne. He seemed anxious to crowd into these few days, as
+he would have said, a good deal of intercourse with the two remarkably
+nice girls--or nice women, he hardly knew which to call them--whom in
+the course of a long, idle, rather tedious detention at Naples, he had
+discovered in the lovely suburb of Posilippo. It was the American consul
+who had put him into relation with them; the sisters had had to sign, in
+the consul's presence, some law-papers, transmitted to them by the man
+of business who looked after their little property in America, and the
+kindly functionary, taking advantage of the pretext (Captain Benyon
+happened to come into the consulate as he was starting, indulgently, to
+wait upon the ladies) to bring together "two parties" who, as he said,
+ought to appreciate each other, proposed to his fellow-officer in the
+service of the United States that he should go with him as witness
+of the little ceremony. He might, of course, take his clerk, but the
+captain would do much better; and he represented to Benyon that the Miss
+Theorys (singular name, wa' n't it?) suffered--he was sure--from a lack
+of society; also that one of them was very sick, that they were
+real pleasant and extraordinarily refined, and that the sight of a
+compatriot, literally draped, as it were, in the national banner,
+would cheer them up more than most anything, and give them a sense of
+protection. They had talked to the consul about Benyon's ship, which
+they could see from their windows, in the distance, at its anchorage.
+They were the only American ladies then at Naples,--the only residents,
+at least,--and the captain would n't be doing the polite thing unless he
+went to pay them his respects. Benyon felt afresh how little it was in
+his line to call upon strange women; he was not in the habit of hunting
+up female acquaintance, or of looking out for the soft emotions which
+the sex only can inspire. He had his reasons for this abstention, and
+he seldom relaxed it; but the consul appealed to him on rather strong
+grounds; and he suffered himself to be persuaded. He was far from
+regretting, during the first weeks at least, an act which was distinctly
+inconsistent with his great rule,--that of never exposing himself to the
+chance of seriously caring for an unmarried woman. He had been obliged
+to make this rule, and had adhered to it with some success. He was
+fond of women, but he was forced to restrict himself to superficial
+sentiments. There was no use tumbling into situations from which the
+only possible issue was a retreat The step he had taken with regard to
+poor Miss Theory and her delightful little sister was an exception on
+which at first he could only congratulate himself. That had been a happy
+idea of the ruminating old consul; it made Captain Benyon forgive
+him his hat, his boots, his shirtfront,--a costume which might be
+considered representative, and the effect of which was to make the
+observer turn with rapture to a half-naked lazzarone. On either side the
+acquaintance had helped the time to pass, and the hours he spent at
+the little _pension_ at Posilippo left a sweet--and by no means
+innutritive--taste behind.
+
+As the weeks went by his exception had grown to look a good deal like
+a rule; but he was able to remind himself that the path of retreat was
+always open to him. Moreover, if he should fall in love with the younger
+girl there would be no great harm, for Kate Theory was in love only with
+her sister, and it would matter very little to her whether he advanced
+or retreated. She was very attractive, or rather very attracting.
+Small, pale, attentive without rigidity, full of pretty curves and quick
+movements, she looked as if the habit of watching and serving had
+taken complete possession of her, and was literally a little sister of
+charity. Her thick black hair was pushed behind her ears, as if to help
+her to listen, and her clear brown eyes had the smile of a person
+too full of tact to cany a dull face to a sickbed. She spoke in an
+encouraging voice, and had soothing and unselfish habits. She was very
+pretty,--producing a cheerful effect of contrasted black and white, and
+dressed herself daintily, so that Mildred might have something agreeable
+to look at Benyon very soon perceived that there was a fund of good
+service in her. Her sister had it all now; but poor Miss Theory was
+fading fast, and then what would become of this precious little force?
+The answer to such a question that seemed most to the point was
+that it was none of his business. He was not sick,--at least not
+physically,--and he was not looking out for a nurse. Such a companion
+might be a luxury, but was not, as yet, a necessity: The welcome of the
+two ladies, at first, had been simple, and he scarcely knew what to call
+it but sweet; a bright, gentle friendliness remained the tone of their
+greeting. They evidently liked him to come,--they liked to see his big
+transatlantic ship hover about those gleaming coasts of exile. The fact
+of Miss Mildred being always stretched on her couch--in his successive
+visits to foreign waters Benyon had not unlearned (as why should he?)
+the pleasant American habit of using the lady's personal name--made
+their intimacy seem greater, their differences less; it was as if his
+hostesses had taken him into their confidence and he had been--as the
+consul would have said--of the same party. Knocking about the salt parts
+of the globe, with a few feet square on a rolling frigate for his only
+home, the pretty, flower-decked sitting-room of the quiet American
+sisters became, more than anything he had hitherto known, his interior.
+He had dreamed once of having an interior, but the dream had vanished in
+lurid smoke, and no such vision had come to him again. He had a feeling
+that the end of this was drawing nigh; he was sure that the advent of
+the strange brother, whose wife was certain to be disagreeable, would
+make a difference. That is why, as I have said, he came as often as
+possible the last week, after he had learned the day on which Percival
+Theory would arrive. The limits of the exception had been reached.
+
+He had been new to the young ladies at Posilippo, and there was no
+reason why they should say to each other that he was a very different
+man from the ingenuous youth who, ten years before, used to wander
+with Georgina Gressie down vistas of plank fences brushed over with the
+advertisements of quack medicines. It was natural he should be, and we,
+who know him, would have found that he had traversed the whole scale of
+alteration. There was nothing ingenuous in him now; he had the look of
+experience, of having been seasoned and hardened by the years.
+
+His face, his complexion, were the same; still smooth-shaven and slim,
+he always passed, at first, for a man scarcely out of his twenties. But
+his expression was old, and his talk was older still,--the talk of one
+who had seen much of the world (as indeed he had, to-day), and judged
+most things for himself, with a humorous scepticism which, whatever
+concessions it might make, superficially, for the sake of not offending
+(for instance) two remarkably nice American women, of the kind that had
+kept most of their illusions, left you with the conviction that the
+next minute it would go quickly back to its own standpoint There was a
+curious contradiction in him; he struck you as serious, and yet he could
+not be said to take things seriously. This was what made Kate Theory
+feel so sure that he had lost the object of his affections; and she
+said to herself that it must have been under circumstances of peculiar
+sadness, for that was, after all, a frequent accident, and was not
+usually thought, in itself, a sufficient stroke to make a man a cynic.
+This reflection, it may be added, was, on the young lady's part, just
+the least bit acrimonious. Captain Benyon was not a cynic in any sense
+in which he might have shocked an innocent mind; he kept his cynicism
+to himself, and was a very clever, courteous, attentive gentleman. If he
+was melancholy, you knew it chiefly by his jokes, for they were usually
+at his own expense; and if he was indifferent, it was all the more
+to his credit that he should have exerted himself to entertain his
+countrywomen.
+
+The last time he called before the arrival of the expected brother, he
+found Miss Theory alone, and sitting up, for a wonder, at her window.
+Kate had driven into Naples to give orders at the hotel for the
+reception of the travellers, who required accommodation more spacious
+than the villa at Posilippo (where the two sisters had the best rooms)
+could offer them; and the sick girl had taken advantage of her absence
+and of the pretext afforded by a day of delicious warmth, to transfer
+herself, for the first time in six months, to an arm-chair. She was
+practising, as she said, for the long carriage-journey to the north,
+where, in a quiet corner they knew of, on the Lago Maggiore, her summer
+was to be spent. Eaymond Benyon remarked to her that she had evidently
+turned the corner and was going to get well, and this gave her a chance
+to say various things that were on her mind. She had many things on her
+mind, poor Mildred Theory, so caged and restless, and yet so resigned
+and patient as she was; with a clear, quick spirit, in the most perfect
+health, ever reaching forward, to the end of its tense little chain,
+from her wasted and suffering body; and, in the course of the perfect
+summer afternoon, as she sat there, exhilarated by the success of her
+effort to get up, and by her comfortable opportunity, she took her
+friendly visitor into the confidence of most of her anxieties. She told
+him, very promptly and positively, that she was not going to get well
+at all, that she had probably not more than ten months yet to live, and
+that he would oblige her very much by not forcing her to waste any more
+breath in contradicting him on that point. Of course she could n't talk
+much; therefore, she wished to say to him only things that he would
+not hear from any one else. Such, for instance, was her present
+secret--Katie's and hers--the secret of their fearing so much that they
+should n't like Percival's wife, who was not from Boston, but from New
+York. Naturally, that by itself would be nothing, but from what they
+had heard of her set--this subject had been explored by their
+correspondents--they were rather nervous, nervous to the point of not
+being in the least reassured by the fact that the young lady would bring
+Percival a fortune. The fortune was a matter of course, for that was
+just what they had heard about Agnes's circle--that the stamp of money
+was on all their thoughts and doings. They were very rich and very new
+and very splashing, and evidently had very little in common with the two
+Miss Theorys, who, moreover, if the truth must be told (and this was a
+great secret), did not care much for the letters their sister-in-law had
+hitherto addressed them. She had been at a French boarding-school in
+New York, and yet (and this was the greatest secret of all) she wrote
+to them that she had performed a part of the journey through France in
+_diligance!_
+
+Of course, they would see the next day; Miss Mildred was sure she should
+know in a moment whether Agnes would like them. She could never have
+told him all this if her sister had been there, and Captain Benyon must
+promise never to reveal to Kate how she had chattered. Kate thought
+always that they must hide everything, and that even if Agnes should be
+a dreadful disappointment they must never let any one guess it And yet
+Kate was just the one who would suffer, in the coming years, after she
+herself had gone. Their brother had been everything to them, but now
+it would all be different Of course it was not to be expected that he
+should have remained a bachelor for their sake; she only wished he had
+waited till she was dead and Kate was married One of these events,
+it was true, was much less sure than the other; Kate might never
+marry,--much as she wished she would! She was quite morbidly unselfish,
+and did n't think she had a right to have anything of her own--not even
+a husband. Miss Mildred talked a good while about Kate, and it never
+occurred to her that she might bore Captain Benyon. She did n't, in
+point of fact; he had none of the trouble of wondering why this poor,
+sick, worried lady was trying to push her sister down his throat Their
+peculiar situation made everything natural, and the tone she took with
+him now seemed only what their pleasant relation for the last three
+months led up to. Moreover, he had an excellent reason for not being
+bored: the fact, namely, that after all, with regard to her sister,
+Miss Mildred appeared to him to keep back more than she uttered. She
+didn't tell him the great thing,--she had nothing to say as to what that
+charming girl thought of Eaymond Benyon. The effect of their interview,
+indeed, was to make him shrink from knowing, and he felt that the right
+thing for him would be to get back into his boat, which was waiting at
+the garden steps, before Kate Theory should return from Naples. It came
+over him, as he sat there, that he was far too interested in knowing
+what this young lady thought of him. She might think what she pleased;
+it could make no difference to him. The best opinion in the world--if it
+looked out at him from her tender eyes--would not make him a whit more
+free or more happy. Women of that sort were not for him, women whom one
+could not see familiarly without falling in love with them, and whom it
+was no use to fall in love with unless one was ready to marry them. The
+light of the summer afternoon, and of Miss Mildred's pure spirit, seemed
+suddenly to flood the whole subject. He saw that he was in danger, and
+he had long since made up his mind that from this particular peril
+it was not only necessary but honorable to flee. He took leave of his
+hostess before her sister reappeared, and had the courage even to say to
+her that he would not come back often after that; they would be so much
+occupied by their brother and his wife! As he moved across the glassy
+bay, to the rhythm of the oars, he wished either that the sisters would
+leave Naples or that his confounded commodore would send for him.
+
+When Kate returned from her errand, ten minutes later, Milly told her
+of the captain's visit, and added that she had never seen anything so
+sudden as the way he left her. "He would n't wait for you, my dear,
+and he said he thought it more than likely that he should never see us
+again. It is as if he thought you were going to die too!"
+
+"Is his ship called away?" Kate Theory asked.
+
+"He did n't tell me so; he said we should be so busy with Percival and
+Agnes."
+
+"He has got tired of us,--that's all. There's nothing wonderful in that;
+I knew he would."
+
+Mildred said nothing for a moment; she was watching her sister, who was
+very attentively arranging some flowers. "Yes, of course, we are very
+dull, and he is like everybody else."
+
+"I thought you thought he was so wonderful," said Kate, "and so fond of
+us."
+
+"So he is; I am surer of that than ever. That's why he went away so
+abruptly."
+
+Kate looked at her sister now. "I don't understand."
+
+"Neither do I, darling. But you will, one of these days."
+
+"How if he never comes back?"
+
+"Oh, he will--after a while--when I am gone. Then he will explain; that,
+at least, is clear to me."
+
+"My poor precious, as if I cared!" Kate Theory exclaimed, smiling as she
+distributed her flowers. She carried them to the window, to place them
+near her sister, and here she paused a moment, her eye caught by an
+object, far out in the bay, with which she was not unfamiliar. Mildred
+noticed its momentary look, and followed its direction.
+
+"It's the captain's gig going back to the ship," Milly said. "It's so
+still one can almost hear the oars."
+
+Kate Theory turned away, with a sudden, strange violence, a movement and
+exclamation which, the very next minute, as she became conscious of what
+she had said,--and, still more, of what she felt--smote her own
+heart (as it flushed her face) with surprise, and with the force of a
+revelation: "I wish it would sink him to the bottom of the sea!"
+
+Her sister stared, then caught her by the dress, as she passed from her,
+drawing her back with a weak hand. "Oh, my dearest, my poorest!" And she
+pulled Kate down and down toward her, so that the girl had nothing for
+it but to sink on her knees and bury her face in Mildred's lap. If that
+ingenious invalid did not know everything now, she knew a great deal.
+
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Mrs. Percival proved very pretty. It is more gracious to begin with this
+declaration, instead of saying that, in the first place, she proved very
+silly. It took a long day to arrive at the end of her silliness, and the
+two ladies at Posilippo, even after a week had passed, suspected that
+they had only skirted its edges. Kate Theory had not spent half an hour
+in her company before she gave a little private sigh of relief; she felt
+that a situation which had promised to be embarrassing was now quite
+clear, was even of a primitive simplicity. She would spend with her
+sister-in-law, in the coming time, one week in the year; that was all
+that was mortally possible. It was a blessing that one could see exactly
+what she was, for in that way the question settled itself. It would have
+been much more tiresome if Agnes had been a little less obvious; then
+she would have had to hesitate and consider and weigh one thing against
+another. She was pretty and silly, as distinctly as an orange is yellow
+and round; and Kate Theory would as soon have thought of looking to her
+to give interest to the future as she would have thought of looking to
+an orange to impart solidity to the prospect of dinner. Mrs. Percival
+travelled in the hope of meeting her American acquaintance, or of making
+acquaintance with such Americans as she did meet, and for the purpose
+of buying mementos for her relations. She was perpetually adding to her
+store of articles in tortoise-shell, in mother-of-pearl, in olive-wood,
+in ivory, in filigree, in tartan lacquer, in mosaic; and she had a
+collection of Roman scarfs and Venetian beads, which she looked over
+exhaustively every night before she went to bed. Her conversation
+bore mainly upon the manner in which she intended to dispose of these
+accumulations. She was constantly changing about, among each other, the
+persons to whom they were respectively to be offered. At Borne one of
+the first things she said to her husband after entering the Coliseum had
+been: "I guess I will give the ivory work-box to Bessie and the Roman
+pearls to Aunt Harriet!" She was always hanging over the travellers'
+book at the hotel; she had it brought up to her, with a cup of
+chocolate, as soon as she arrived. She searched its pages for the
+magical name of New York, and she indulged in infinite conjecture as to
+who the people were--the name was sometimes only a partial cue--who had
+inscribed it there. What she most missed in Europe, and what she most
+enjoyed, were the New Yorkers; when she met them she talked about the
+people in their native city who had "moved" and the streets they had
+moved to. "Oh, yes, the Drapers are going up town, to Twenty-fourth
+Street, and the Vanderdeckens are going to be in Twenty-third Street,
+right back of them. My uncle, Henry Piatt, thinks of building round
+there." Mrs. Percival Theory was capable of repeating statements like
+these thirty times over,--of lingering on them for hours. She talked
+largely of herself, of her uncles and aunts, of her clothes--past,
+present, and future. These articles, in especial, filled her horizon;
+she considered them with a complacency which might have led you to
+suppose that she had invented the custom of draping the human form. Her
+main point of contact with Naples was the purchase of coral; and all the
+while she was there the word "set"--she used it as if every one would
+understand--fell with its little, flat, common sound upon the ears of
+her sisters-in-law, who had no sets of anything. She cared little for
+pictures and mountains; Alps and Apennines were not productive of
+New Yorkers, and it was difficult to take an interest in Madonnas who
+flourished at periods when, apparently, there were no fashions, or, at
+any rate, no trimmings.
+
+I speak here not only of the impression she made upon her husband's
+anxious sisters, but of the judgment passed on her (he went so far
+as that, though it was not obvious how it mattered to him) by Raymond
+Benyon. And this brings me at a jump (I confess it's a very small one)
+to the fact that he did, after all, go back to Posilippo. He stayed away
+for nine days, and at the end of this time Percival Theory called upon
+him, to thank him for the civility he had shown his kinswomen. He went
+to this gentleman's hotel, to return his visit, and there he found Miss
+Kate, in her brother's sitting-room. She had come in by appointment from
+the villa, and was going with the others to seek the royal palace, which
+she had not yet had an opportunity to inspect It was proposed (not by
+Kate), and presently arranged, that Captain Benyon should go with
+them, and he accordingly walked over marble floors for half an hour,
+exchanging conscious commonplaces with the woman he loved. For
+this truth had rounded itself during those nine days of absence; he
+discovered that there was nothing particularly sweet in his life when
+once Kate Theory had been excluded from it He had stayed away to keep
+himself from falling in love with her; but this expedient was in itself
+illuminating, for he perceived that, according to the vulgar adage, he
+was locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen. As he
+paced the deck of his ship and looked toward Posilippo, his tenderness
+crystallized; the thick, smoky flame of a sentiment that knew itself
+forbidden and was angry at the knowledge, now danced upon the fuel of
+his good resolutions. The latter, it must be said, resisted, declined
+to be consumed. He determined that he would see Kate Theory again, for
+a time, just sufficient to bid her good-by, and to add a little
+explanation. He thought of his explanation very lovingly, but it may
+not strike the reader as a happy inspiration. To part from her dryly,
+abruptly, without an allusion to what he might have said if everything
+had been different,--that would be wisdom, of course, that would be
+virtue, that would be the line of a practical man, of a man who kept
+himself well in hand. But it would be virtue terribly unrewarded,--it
+would be virtue too austere for a person who sometimes flattered himself
+that he had taught himself stoicism. The minor luxury tempted him
+irresistibly, since the larger--that of happy love--was denied him; the
+luxury of letting the girl know that it would not be an accident--oh,
+not at all--that they should never meet again. She might easily think it
+was, and thinking it was would doubtless do her no harm. But this would
+n't give him his pleasure,--the Platonic satisfaction of expressing to
+her at the same time his belief that they might have made each other
+happy, and the necessity of his renunciation. That, probably, wouldn't
+hurt her either, for she had given him no proof whatever that she cared
+for him. The nearest approach to it was the way she walked beside him
+now, sweet and silent, without the least reference to his not having
+been back to the villa. The place was cool and dusky, the blinds were
+drawn, to keep out the light and noise, and the little party wandered
+through the high saloons, where precious marbles and the gleam of
+gilding and satin made reflections in the rich dimness. Here and there
+the cicerone, in slippers, with Neapolitan familiarity, threw open a
+shutter to show off a picture on a tapestry. He strolled in front with
+Percival Theory and his wife, while this lady, drooping silently from
+her husband's arm as they passed, felt the stuff of the curtains and
+the sofas. When he caught her in these experiments, the cicerone, in
+expressive deprecation, clasped his hands and lifted his eyebrows;
+whereupon Mrs. Theory exclaimed to her husband, "Oh, bother his old
+king!" It was not striking to Captain Benyon why Percival Theory had
+married the niece of Mr. Henry Piatt. He was less interesting than his
+sisters,--a smooth, cool, correct young man, who frequently took out
+a pencil and did a little arithmetic on the back of a letter. He
+sometimes, in spite of his correctness, chewed a toothpick, and he
+missed the American papers, which he used to ask for in the most
+unlikely places. He was a Bostonian converted to New York; a very
+special type.
+
+"Is it settled when you leave Naples?" Benyon asked of Kate Theory.
+
+"I think so; on the twenty-fourth. My brother has been very kind; he
+has lent us his carriage, which is a large one, so that Mildred can lie
+down. He and Agnes will take another; but, of course, we shall travel
+together."
+
+"I wish to Heaven I were going with you?" Captain Benyon said. He had
+given her the opportunity to respond, but she did not take it; she
+merely remarked, with a vague laugh, that of course he couldn't take his
+ship over the Apennines. "Yes, there is always my ship," he went on. "I
+am afraid that in future it will carry me far away from you."
+
+They were alone in one of the royal apartments; their companions had
+passed, in advance of them, into the adjoining room. Benyon and his
+fellow-visitor had paused beneath one of the immense chandeliers of
+glass, which in the clear, colored gloom (through it one felt the strong
+outer light of Italy beating in) suspended its twinkling drops from the
+decorated vault. They looked round them confusedly, made shy for the
+moment by Benyon's having struck a note more serious than any that had
+hitherto souuded between them, looked at the sparse furniture, draped
+in white overalls, at the scagiiola floor, in which the great cluster of
+crystal pendants seemed to shine again.
+
+"You are master of your ship. Can't you sail it as you like?" Kate
+Theory asked, with a smile.
+
+"I am not master of anything. There is not a man in the world less free.
+I am a slave. I am a victim."
+
+She looked at him with kind eyes; something in his voice suddenly made
+her put away all thought of the defensive airs that a girl, in certain
+situations, is expected to assume. She perceived that he wanted to make
+her understand something, and now her only wish was to help him to say
+it. "You are not happy," she murmured, simply, her voice dying away in a
+kind of wonderment at this reality.
+
+The gentle touch of the words--it was as if her hand had stroked his
+cheek--seemed to him the sweetest thing he had ever known. "No, I am not
+happy, because I am not free. If I were--if I were, I would give up my
+ship. I would give up everything, to follow you. I can't explain; that
+is part of the hardness of it. I only want you to know it,--that if
+certain things were different, if everything was different, I might tell
+you that I believe I should have a right to speak to you. Perhaps some
+day it will change; but probably then it will be too late. Meanwhile, I
+have no right of any kind. I don't want to trouble you, and I don't ask
+of you--anything! It is only to have spoken just once. I don't make
+you understand, of course. I am afraid I seem to you rather a
+brute,--perhaps even a humbug. Don't think of it now,--don't try to
+understand. But some day, in the future, remember what I have said to
+you, and how we stood here, in this strange old place, alone! Perhaps it
+will give you a little pleasure."
+
+Kate Theory began by listening to him with visible eagerness; but in a
+moment she turned away her eyes. "I am very sorry for you," she said,
+gravely.
+
+"Then you do understand enough?"
+
+"I shall think of what you have said, in the future."
+
+Benyon's lips formed the beginning of a word of tenderness, which he
+instantly suppressed; and in a different tone, with a bitter smile and a
+sad shake of the head, raising his arms a moment and letting them fall,
+he said: "It won't hurt any one, your remembering this!"
+
+"I don't know whom you mean." And the girl, abruptly, began to walk to
+the end of the room. He made no attempt to tell her whom he meant, and
+they proceeded together in silence till they overtook their companions.
+
+There were several pictures in the neighboring room, and Percival Theory
+and his wife had stopped to look at one of them, of which the cicerone
+announced the title and the authorship as Benyon came up. It was a
+modern portrait of a Bourbon princess, a woman young, fair, handsome,
+covered with jewels. Mrs. Percival appeared to be more struck with it
+than with anything the palace had yet offered to her sight, while her
+sister-in-law walked to the window, which the custodian had opened, to
+look out into the garden. Benyon noticed this; he was conscious that
+he had given the girl something to reflect upon, and his ears burned a
+little as he stood beside Mrs. Percival and looked up, mechanically, at
+the royal lady. He already repented a little of what he had said, for,
+after all, what was the use? And he hoped the others wouldn't observe
+that he had been making love.
+
+"Gracious, Percival! Do you see who she looks like?" Mrs. Theory said to
+her husband.
+
+"She looks like a woman who has run up a big bill at Tiffany's," this
+gentleman answered.
+
+"She looks like my sister-in-law; the eyes, the mouth, the way the
+hair's done,--the whole thing."
+
+"Which do you mean? You have got about a dozen."
+
+"Why, Georgina, of course,--Georgina Roy. She's awfully like."
+
+"Do you call _her_ your sister-in-law?" Percival Theory asked. "You must
+want very much to claim her."
+
+"Well, she's handsome enough. You have got to invent some new name,
+then. Captain Benyon, what do you call your brother-in-law's second
+wife?" Mrs. Percival continued, turning to her neighbor, who still stood
+staring at the portrait. At first he had looked without seeing; then
+sight, and hearing as well, became quick. They were suddenly peopled
+with thrilling recognitions. The Bourbon princess--the eyes, the mouth,
+the way the hair was done; these things took on an identity, and the
+gaze of the painted face seemed to fasten itself to his own. But who in
+the world was Georgina Roy, and what was this talk about sisters-in-law?
+He turned to the little lady at his side a countenance unexpectedly
+puzzled by the problem she had airily presented to him.
+
+"Your brother-in-law's second wife? That's rather complicated."
+
+"Well, of course, he need n't have married again?" said Mrs. Percival,
+with a small sigh.
+
+"Whom did he marry?" asked Benyon, staring.
+
+Percival Theory had turned away. "Oh, if you are going into her
+relationships!" he murmured, and joined his sister at the brilliant
+window, through which, from the distance, the many-voiced uproar of
+Naples came in.
+
+"He married first my sister Dora, and she died five years ago. Then he
+married _her_," and Mrs. Percival nodded at the princess.
+
+Benyon's eyes went back to the portrait; he could see what she meant--it
+stared out at him. "Her? Georgina?"
+
+"Georgina Gressie. Gracious, do you know her?"
+
+It was very distinct--that answer of Mrs. Percival's, and the question
+that followed it as well. But he had the resource of the picture; he
+could look at it, seem to take it very seriously, though it danced up
+and down before him. He felt that he was turning red, then he felt that
+he was turning pale. "The brazen impudence!" That was the way he
+could speak to himself now of the woman he had once loved, and whom he
+afterwards hated, till this had died out, too. Then the wonder of it was
+lost in the quickly growing sense that it would make a difference
+for him,--a great difference. Exactly what, he didn't see yet; only a
+difference that swelled and swelled as he thought of it, and caught up,
+in its expansion, the girl who stood behind him so quietly, looking into
+the Italian garden.
+
+The custodian drew Mrs. Percival away to show her another princess,
+before Benyon answered her last inquiry. This gave him time to recover
+from his first impulse, which had been to answer it with a negative;
+he saw in a moment that an admission of his acquaintance with Mrs. Roy
+(Mrs. Roy!--it was prodigious!) was necessarily helping him to learn
+more. Besides, it needn't be compromising. Very likely Mrs. Percival
+would hear one day that he had once wanted to marry her. So, when he
+joined his companions a minute later he remarked that he had known Miss
+Gressie years before, and had even admired her considerably, but had
+lost sight of her entirely in later days. She had been a great beauty,
+and it was a wonder that she had not married earlier. Five years ago,
+was it? No, it was only two. He had been going to say that in so long a
+time it would have been singular he should not have heard of it. He had
+been away from New York for ages; but one always heard of marriages and
+deaths. This was a proof, though two years was rather long. He led Mrs.
+Percival insidiously into a further room, in advance of the others,
+to whom the cicerone returned. She was delighted to talk about her
+"connections," and she supplied him with every detail He could trust
+himself now; his self-possession was complete, or, so far as it was
+wanting, the fault was that of a sudden gayety which he could not, on
+the spot, have accounted for. Of course it was not very flattering to
+them--Mrs. Percivals own people--that poor Dora's husband should have
+consoled himself; but men always did it (talk of widows!) and he
+had chosen a girl who was--well, very fine-looking, and the sort of
+successor to Dora that they needn't be ashamed of. She had been awfully
+admired, and no one had understood why she had waited so long to marry.
+She had had some affair as a girl,--an engagement to an officer in the
+army,--and the man had jilted her, or they had quarrelled, or something
+or other. She was almost an old maid,--well, she was thirty, or very
+nearly,--but she had done something good now. She was handsomer than
+ever, and tremendously stylish. William Roy had one of the biggest
+incomes in the city, and he was quite affectionate. He had been
+intensely fond of Dora--he often spoke of her still, at least to her
+own relations; and her portrait, the last time Mrs. Percival was in his
+house (it was at a party, after his marriage to Miss Gressie), was still
+in the front parlor.. Perhaps by this time he had had it moved to the
+back; but she was sure he would keep it somewhere, anyway. Poor Dora
+had had no children; but Georgina was making that all right,--she had
+a beautiful boy. Mrs. Percival had what she would have called quite a
+pleasant chat with Captain Benyon about Mrs. Roy. Perhaps _he_ was the
+officer--she never thought of that? He was sure he had never jilted her?
+And he had never quarrelled with a lady? Well, he must be different from
+most men.
+
+He certainly had the air of being so, before he parted that afternoon
+with Kate Theory. This young lady, at least, was free to think him
+wanting in that consistency which is supposed to be a distinctively
+masculine virtue. An hour before, he had taken an eternal farewell
+of her, and now he was alluding to future meetings, to future visits,
+proposing that, with her sister-in-law, she should appoint an early day
+for coming to see the "Louisiana." She had supposed she understood him,
+but it would appear now that she had not understood him at all. His
+manner had changed, too. More and more off his guard, Raymond Benyon
+was not aware how much more hopeful an expression it gave him, his
+irresistible sense that somehow or other this extraordinary proceeding
+of his wife's would set him free. Kate Theory felt rather weary and
+mystified,--all the more for knowing that henceforth Captain Benyon's
+variations would be the most important thing in life for her.
+
+This officer, on his ship in the bay, lingered very late on deck that
+night,--lingered there, indeed, under the warm southern sky, in which
+the stars glittered with a hot, red light, until the early dawn began to
+show. He smoked cigar after cigar, he walked up and down by the hour, he
+was agitated by a thousand reflections, he repeated to himself that
+it made a difference,--an immense difference; but the pink light had
+deepened in the east before he had discovered in what the diversity
+consisted. By that time he saw it clearly,--it consisted in Georgina's
+being in his power now, in place of his being in hers. He laughed as he
+sat there alone in the darkness at the thought of what she had done. It
+had occurred to him more than once that she would do it,--he believed
+her capable of anything; but the accomplished fact had a freshness of
+comicality. He thought of Mr. William Roy, of his big income, of his
+being "quite affectionate," of his blooming son and heir, of his having
+found such a worthy successor to poor Mrs. Dora. He wondered whether
+Georgina had happened to mention to him that she had a husband living,
+but was strongly of the belief that she had not. Why should she, after
+all? She had neglected to mention it to so many others. He had thought
+he knew her, in so many years,--that he had nothing more to learn about
+her; but this ripe stroke revived his sense of her audacity. Of course
+it was what she had been waiting for, and if she had not done it sooner
+it was because she had hoped he would be lost at sea in one of his long
+cruises and relieve her of the necessity of a crime. How she must hate
+him to-day for not having been lost, for being alive, for continuing to
+put her in the wrong! Much as she hated him, however, his own loathing
+was at least a match for hers. She had done him the foulest of
+wrongs,--she had ravaged his life. That he should ever detest in this
+degree a woman whom he had once loved as he loved her, he would not have
+thought possible in his innocent younger years. But he would not have
+thought it possible then that a woman should be such a cold-blooded
+devil as she had been. His love had perished in his rage,--his blinding,
+impotent rage at finding that he had been duped, and measuring his
+impotence. When he learned, years before, from Mrs. Portico, what she
+had done with her baby, of whose entrance into life she herself had
+given him no intimation, he felt that he was face to face with a full
+revelation of her nature. Before that it had puzzled him; it had amazed
+him; his relations with her were bewildering, stupefying. But when,
+after obtaining, with difficulty and delay, a leave of absence from
+Government, and betaking himself to Italy to look for the child and
+assume possession of it, he had encountered absolute failure and
+defeat,--then the case presented itself to him more simply. He perceived
+that he had mated himself with a creature who just happened to be
+a monster, a human exception altogether. That was what he could n't
+pardon--her conduct about the child; never, never, never! To him she
+might have done what she chose,--dropped him, pushed him out into
+eternal cold, with his hands fast tied,--and he would have accepted
+it, excused her almost, admitted that it had been his business to mind
+better what he was about. But she had tortured him through the poor
+little irrecoverable son whom he had never seen, through the heart
+and the vitals that she had not herself, and that he had to have, poor
+wretch, for both of them!
+
+All his efforts for years had been to forget these horrible months, and
+he had cut himself off from them so that they seemed at times to belong
+to the life of another person. But to-night he lived them over again;
+he retraced the different gradations of darkness through which he had
+passed, from the moment, so soon after his extraordinary marriage, when
+it came over him that she already repented, and meant, if possible, to
+elude all her obligations. This was the moment when he saw why she had
+reserved herself--in the strange vow she extracted from him--an
+open door for retreat; the moment, too, when her having had such an
+inspiration (in the midst of her momentary good faith, if good faith it
+had ever been) struck him as a proof of her essential depravity. What he
+had tried to forget came back to him: the child that was not his child
+produced for him when he fell upon that squalid nest of peasants in
+the Genoese country; and then the confessions, retractations,
+contradictions, lies, terrors, threats, and general bottomless, baffling
+baseness of every one in the place. The child was gone; that had been
+the only definite thing. The woman who had taken it to nurse had a
+dozen different stories,--her husband had as many,--and every one in the
+village had a hundred more. Georgina had been sending money,--she had
+managed, apparently, to send a good deal,--and the whole country seemed
+to have been living on it and making merry. At one moment the baby
+had died and received a most expensive burial; at another he had been
+intrusted (for more healthy air, Santissima Madonna!) to the woman's
+cousin in another village. According to a version, which for a day or
+two Benyon had inclined to think the least false, he had been taken by
+the cousin (for his beauty's sake) to Genoa (when she went for the first
+time in her life to the town to see her daughter in service there), and
+had been confided for a few hours to a third woman, who was to keep him
+while the cousin walked about the streets, but who, having no child of
+her own, took such a fancy to him that she refused to give him up, and
+a few days later left the place (she was a Pisana) never to be heard
+of more. The cousin had forgotten her name,--it had happened six months
+before. Benyon spent a year looking up and down Italy for his child,
+and inspecting hundreds of swaddled infants, impenetrable candidates for
+recognition. Of course he could only get further and further from real
+knowledge, and his search was arrested by the conviction that it was
+making him mad. He set his teeth and made up his mind (or tried to) that
+the baby had died in the hands of its nurse. This was, after all, much
+the likeliest supposition, and the woman had maintained it, in the hope
+of being rewarded for her candor, quite as often as she had asseverated
+that it was still, somewhere, alive, in the hope of being remunerated
+for her good news. It may be imagined with what sentiments toward his
+wife Benyon had emerged from this episode. To-night his memory went
+further back,--back to the beginning and to the days when he had had
+to ask himself, with all the crudity of his first surprise, what in the
+name of wantonness she had wished to do with him. The answer to
+this speculation was so old,--it had dropped so ont of the line of
+recurrence,--that it was now almost new again. Moreover, it was only
+approximate, for, as I have already said, he could comprehend such
+conduct as little at the end as at the beginning. She had found herself
+on a slope which her nature forced her to descend to the bottom. She did
+him the honor of wishing to enjoy his society, and she did herself
+the honor of thinking that their intimacy--however brief--must have a
+certain consecration. She felt that, with him, after his promise (he
+would have made any promise to lead her on), she was secure,--secure
+as she had proved to be, secure as she must think herself now. That
+security had helped her to ask herself, after the first flush of passion
+was over, and her native, her twice-inherited worldliness had bad time
+to open its eyes again, why she should keep faith with a man whose
+deficiencies (as a husband before the world--another affair) had been
+so scientifically exposed to her by her parents. So she had simply
+determined not to keep faith; and her determination, at least, she did
+keep.
+
+By the time Benyon turned in he had satisfied himself, as I say,
+that Georgina was now in his power; and this seemed to him such an
+improvement in his situation that he allowed himself (for the next ten
+days) a license which made Kate Theory almost as happy as it made her
+sister, though she pretended to understand it far less. Mildred sank to
+her rest, or rose to fuller comprehensions, within the year, in the Isle
+of Wight, and Captain Benyon, who had never written so many letters as
+since they left Naples, sailed westward about the same time as the sweet
+survivor. For the "Louisiana" at last was ordered home.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+Certainly, I will see you if you come, and you may appoint any day or
+hour you like. I should have seen you with pleasure any time these last
+years. Why should we not be friends, as we used to be? Perhaps we shall
+be yet. I say "perhaps" only, on purpose,--because your note is rather
+vague about your state of mind. Don't come with any idea about making me
+nervous or uncomfortable. I am not nervous by nature, thank Heaven,
+and I won't--I positively won't (do you hear, dear Captain Benyon?)--be
+uncomfortable. I have been so (it served me right) for years and years;
+but I am very happy now. To remain so is the very definite intention of,
+yours ever,
+
+Georgina Roy.
+
+
+This was the answer Benyon received to a short letter that he despatched
+to Mrs. Roy after his return to America. It was not till he had been
+there some weeks that he wrote to her. He had been occupied in various
+ways: he had had to look after his ship; he had had to report at
+Washington; he had spent a fortnight with his mother at Portsmouth, N.
+H.; and he had paid a visit to Kate Theory in Boston. She herself was
+paying visits, she was staying with various relatives and friends. She
+had more color--it was very delicately rosy--than she had had of old, in
+spite of her black dress; and the effect of looking at him seemed to him
+to make her eyes grow still prettier. Though sisterless now, she was not
+without duties, and Benyon could easily see that life would press hard
+on her unless some one should interfere. Every one regarded her as
+just the person to do certain things. Every one thought she could do
+everything, because she had nothing else to do. She used to read to the
+blind, and, more onerously, to the deaf. She looked after other people's
+children while the parents attended anti-slavery conventions.
+
+She was coming to New York later to spend a week at her brother's, but
+beyond this she didn't know what she should do. Benyon felt it to be
+awkward that he should not be able, just now, to tell her; and this
+had much to do with his coming to the point, for he accused himself of
+having rather hung fire. Coming to the point, for Benyon, meant writing
+a note to Mrs. Roy (as he must call her), in which he asked whether she
+would see him if he should present himself. The missive was short; it
+contained, in addition to what I have noted, little more than the remark
+that he had something of importance to say to her. Her reply, which we
+have just read, was prompt. Benyon designated an hour, and the next
+day rang the doorbell of her big modern house, whose polished windows
+seemed to shine defiance at him.
+
+As he stood on the steps, looking up and down the straight vista of the
+Fifth Avenue, he perceived that he was trembling a little, that _he_
+was nervous, if she was not. He was ashamed of his agitation, and he
+addressed himself a very stern reprimand. Afterwards he saw that what
+had made him nervous was not any doubt of the goodness of his cause,
+but his revived sense (as he drew near her) of his wife's hardness,--her
+capacity for insolence. He might only break himself against that, and
+the prospect made him feel helpless. She kept him waiting for a long
+time after he had been introduced; and as he walked up and down her
+drawing-room, an immense, florid, expensive apartment, covered with
+blue satin, gilding, mirrors and bad frescos, it came over him as a
+certainty that her delay was calculated. She wished to annoy him, to
+weary him; she was as ungenerous as she was unscrupulous. It never
+occurred to him that in spite of the bold words of her note, she, too,
+might be in a tremor, and if any one in their secret bad suggested that
+she was afraid to meet him, he would have laughed at this idea. This
+was of bad omen for the success of his errand; for it showed that he
+recognized the ground of her presumption,--his having the superstition
+of old promises. By the time she appeared, he was flushed,--very angry.
+She closed the door behind her, and stood there looking at him, with the
+width of the room between them.
+
+The first emotion her presence excited was a quick sense of the strange
+fact that, after all these years of loneliness, such a magnificent
+person should be his wife. For she was magnificent, in the maturity of
+her beauty, her head erect, her complexion splendid, her auburn tresses
+undimmed, a certain plenitude in her very glance. He saw in a moment
+that she wished to seem to him beautiful, she had endeavored to dress
+herself to the best effect. Perhaps, after all, it was only for this she
+had delayed; she wished to give herself every possible touch. For some
+moments they said nothing; they had not stood face to face for nearly
+ten years, and they met now as adversaries. No two persons could
+possibly be more interested in taking each other's measure. It scarcely
+belonged to Georgina, however, to have too much the air of timidity;
+and after a moment, satisfied, apparently, that she was not to receive a
+broadside, she advanced, slowly rubbing her jewelled hands and smiling.
+He wondered why she should smile, what thought was in her mind. His
+impressions followed each other with extraordinary quickness of pulse,
+and now he saw, in addition to what he had already perceived, that she
+was waiting to take her cue,--she had determined on no definite line.
+There was nothing definite about her but her courage; the rest would
+depend upon him. As for her courage, it seemed to glow in the beauty
+which grew greater as she came nearer, with her eyes on his and her
+fixed smile; to be expressed in the very perfume that accompanied her
+steps. By this time he had got still a further impression, and it was
+the strangest of all. She was ready for anything, she was capable of
+anything, she wished to surprise him with her beauty, to remind him that
+it belonged, after all, at the bottom of everything, to him. She was
+ready to bribe him, if bribing should be necessary. She had carried on
+an intrigue before she was twenty; it would be more, rather than less,
+easy for her, now that she was thirty. All this and more was in her
+cold, living eyes, as in the prolonged silence they engaged themselves
+with his; but I must not dwell upon it, for reasons extraneous to the
+remarkable fact She was a truly amazing creature.
+
+"Raymond!" she said, in a low voice, a voice which might represent
+either a vague greeting or an appeal.
+
+He took no heed of the exclamation, but asked her why she had
+deliberately kept him waiting,--as if she had not made a fool enough of
+him already. She could n't suppose it was for his pleasure he had come
+into the house.
+
+She hesitated a moment,--still with her smile. "I must tell you I have
+a son,--the dearest little boy. His nurse happened to be engaged for the
+moment, and I had to watch him. I am more devoted to him than you might
+suppose."
+
+He fell back from her a few steps. "I wonder if you are insane," he
+murmured.
+
+"To allude to my child? Why do you ask me such questions then? I tell
+you the simple truth. I take every care of this one. I am older and
+wiser. The other one was a complete mistake; he had no right to exist."
+
+"Why didn't you kill him then with your own hands, instead of that
+torture?"
+
+"Why did n't I kill myself? That question would be more to the point You
+are looking wonderfully well," she broke off in another tone; "had n't
+we better sit down?"
+
+"I did n't come here for the advantage of conversation," Benyon
+answered. And he was going on, but she interrupted him--
+
+"You came to say something dreadful, very likely; though I hoped you
+would see it was better not But just tell me this before you begin. Are
+you successful, are you happy? It has been so provoking, not knowing
+more about you."
+
+There was something in the manner in which this was said that caused him
+to break into a loud laugh; whereupon she added,--
+
+"Your laugh is just what it used to be. How it comes back to me! You
+_have_ improved in appearance," she went on.
+
+She had seated herself, though he remained standing; and she leaned back
+in a low, deep chair, looking up at him, with her arms folded. He stood
+near her and over her, as it were, dropping his baffled eyes on her,
+with his hand resting on the corner of the chimney-piece. "Has it never
+occurred to you that I may deem myself absolved from the promise made
+you before I married you?"
+
+"Very often, of course. But I have instantly dismissed the idea. How can
+you be 'absolved'? One promises, or one doesn't. I attach no meaning
+to that, and neither do you." And she glanced down to the front of her
+dress.
+
+Benyon listened, but he went on as if he had not heard her. "What I came
+to say to you is this: that I should like your consent to my bringing a
+suit for divorce against you."
+
+"A suit for divorce? I never thought of that."
+
+"So that I may marry another woman. I can easily obtain a divorce on the
+ground of your desertion."
+
+She stared a moment, then her smile solidified, as it were, and she
+looked grave; but he could see that her gravity, with her lifted
+eyebrows, was partly assumed. "Ah, you want to marry another woman!" she
+exclaimed, slowly, thoughtfully. He said nothing, and she went on: "Why
+don't you do as I have done?"
+
+"Because I don't want my children to be--"
+
+Before he could say the words she sprang up, checking him with a cry.
+"Don't say it; it is n't necessary! Of course I know what you mean; but
+they won't be if no one knows it."
+
+"I should object to knowing it myself; it's enough for me to know it of
+yours."
+
+"Of course I have been prepared for your saying that"
+
+"I should hope so!" Benyon exclaimed. "You may be a bigamist if it
+suits you, but to me the idea is not attractive. I wish to marry--" and,
+hesitating a moment, with his slight stammer, he repeated, "I wish to
+marry--"
+
+"Marry, then, and have done with it!" cried Mrs. Roy.
+
+He could already see that he should be able to extract no consent from
+her; he felt rather sick. "It's extraordinary to me that you should n't
+be more afraid of being found out," he said after a moment's reflection.
+"There are two or three possible accidents."
+
+"How do you know how much afraid I am? I have thought of every accident,
+in dreadful nights. How do you know what my life is, or what it has been
+all these miserable years?"
+
+"You look wasted and worn, certainly."
+
+"Ah, don't compliment me!" Georgina exclaimed. "If I had never known
+you--if I had not been through all this--I believe I should have been
+handsome. When did you hear of my marriage? Where were you at the time?"
+
+"At Naples, more than six months ago, by a mere chance."
+
+"How strange that it should have taken you so long! Is the lady a
+Neapolitan? They don't mind what they do over there."
+
+"I have no information to give you beyond what I just said," Benyon
+rejoined. "My life does n't in the least regard you."
+
+"Ah, but it does from the moment I refuse to let you divorce me."
+
+"You refuse?" Benyon said softly.
+
+"Don't look at me that way! You have n't advanced so rapidly as I used
+to think you would; you haven't distinguished yourself so much," she
+went on, irrelevantly.
+
+"I shall be promoted commodore one of these days," Benyon answered.
+"You don't know much about it, for my advancement has already been very
+exceptionally rapid." He blushed as soon as the words were out of his
+mouth. She gave a light laugh on seeing it; but he took up his hat and
+added: "Think over a day or two what I have proposed to you. Think of
+the temper in which I ask it."
+
+"The temper?" she stared. "Pray, what have you to do with temper?" And
+as he made no reply, smoothing his hat with his glove, she went on:
+"Years ago, as much as you please I you had a good right, I don't deny,
+and you raved, in your letters, to your heart's content That's why
+I would n't see you; I did n't wish to take it full in the face. But
+that's all over now, time is a healer, you have cooled off, and by your
+own admission you have consoled yourself. Why do you talk to me about
+temper! What in the world have I done to you, but let you alone?"
+
+"What do you call this business?" Benyon asked, with his eye flashing
+all over the room.
+
+"Ah, excuse me, that doesn't touch you,--it's my affair. I leave you
+your liberty, and I can live as I like. If I choose to live in this way,
+it may be queer (I admit it is, awfully), but you have nothing to say
+to it. If I am willing to take the risk, you may be. If I am willing to
+play such an infernal trick upon a confiding gentleman (I will put it as
+strongly as you possibly could), I don't see what you have to say to it
+except that you are tremendously glad such a woman as that is n't known
+to be your wife!" She had been cool and deliberate up to this time; but
+with these words her latent agitation broke out "Do you think I have
+been happy? Do you think I have enjoyed existence? Do you see me
+freezing up into a stark old maid?"
+
+"I wonder you stood out so long!" said Benyon.
+
+"I wonder I did. They were bad years."
+
+"I have no doubt they were!"
+
+"You could do as you pleased," Georgina went on. "You roamed about the
+world; you formed charming relations. I am delighted to hear it from
+your own lips. Think of my going back to my father's house--that family
+vault--and living there, year after year, as Miss Gressie! If you
+remember my father and mother--they are round in Twelfth Street, just
+the same--you must admit that I paid for my folly!"
+
+"I have never understood you; I don't understand you now," said Benyon.
+
+She looked at him a moment. "I adored you."
+
+"I could damn you with a word!" he went on.
+
+The moment he had spoken she grasped his arm and held up her other hand,
+as if she were listening to a sound outside the room. She had evidently
+had an inspiration, and she carried it into instant effect She swept
+away to the door, flung it open, and passed into the hall, whence her
+voice came back to Benyon as she addressed a person who was apparently
+her husband. She had heard him enter the house at his habitual hour,
+after his long morning at business; the closing of the door of the
+vestibule had struck her ear. The parlor was on a level with the hall,
+and she greeted him without impediment. She asked him to come in and be
+introduced to Captain Benyon, and he responded with due solemnity. She
+returned in advance of him, her eyes fixed upon Benyon and lighted
+with defiance, her whole face saying to him, vividly: "Here is your
+opportunity; I give it to you with my own hands. Break your promise and
+betray me if you dare! You say you can damn me with a word: speak the
+word and let us see!"
+
+Benyon's heart beat faster, as he felt that it was indeed a chance; but
+half his emotion came from the spectacle--magnificent in its way--of her
+unparalleled impudence. A sense of all that he had escaped in not
+having had to live with her rolled over him like a wave, while he looked
+strangely at Mr. Roy, to whom this privilege had been vouchsafed. He saw
+in a moment his successor had a constitution that would carry it.
+Mr. Roy suggested squareness and solidity; he was a broadbased,
+comfortable, polished man, with a surface in which the rank tendrils
+of irritation would not easily obtain a foothold. He had a broad,
+blank face, a capacious mouth, and a small, light eye, to which, as
+he entered, he was engaged in adjusting a double gold-rimmed glass.
+He approached Benyon with a prudent, civil, punctual air, as if he
+habitually met a good many gentlemen in the course of business, and
+though, naturally, this was not that sort of occasion he was not a man
+to waste time in preliminaries. Benyon had immediately the impression
+of having seen him--or his equivalent--a thousand times before. He was
+middle-aged, fresh-colored, whiskered, prosperous, indefinite. Georgina
+introduced them to each other. She spoke of Benyon as an old friend whom
+she had known long before she had known Mr. Roy, who had been very kind
+to her years ago, when she was a girl.
+
+"He's in the navy. He has just come back from a long cruise."
+
+Mr. Hoy shook hands,--Benyon gave him his before he knew it,--said he
+was very happy, smiled, looked at Benyon from head to foot, then at
+Georgina, then round the room, then back at Benyon again,--at Benyon,
+who stood there, without sound or movement, with a dilated eye, and a
+pulse quickened to a degree of which Mr. Roy could have little idea.
+Georgina made some remark about their sitting down, but William Roy
+replied that he had n't time for that,--if Captain Benyon would excuse
+him. He should have to go straight into the library, and write a note to
+send back to his office, where, as he just remembered, he had neglected
+to give, in leaving the place, an important direction.
+
+"You can wait a moment, surely," Georgina said. "Captain Benyon wants so
+much to see you."
+
+"Oh, yes, my dear; I can wait a minute, and I can come back."
+
+Benyon saw, accordingly, that he was waiting, and that Georgina was
+waiting too. Each was waiting for him to say something, though they were
+waiting for different things. Mr. Roy put his hands behind him,
+balanced himself on his toes, hoped that Captain Benyon had enjoyed
+his cruise,--though he should n't care much for the navy himself,--and
+evidently wondered at the stolidity of his wife's visitor. Benyon knew
+he was speaking, for he indulged in two or three more observations,
+after which he stopped. But his meaning was not present to our hero.
+This personage was conscious of only one thing, of his own momentary
+power,--of everything that hung on his lips; all the rest swam before
+him; there was vagueness in his ears and eyes. Mr. Roy stopped, as I
+say, and there was a pause, which seemed to Benyon of tremendous length.
+He knew, while it lasted, that Georgina was as conscious as himself that
+he felt his opportunity, that he held it there in his hand, weighing it
+noiselessly in the palm, and that she braved and scorned, or, rather,
+that she enjoyed, the danger. He asked himself whether he should be able
+to speak if he were to try, and then he knew that he should not, that
+the words would stick in his throat, that he should make sounds that
+would dishonor his cause. There was no real choice or decision, then, on
+Benyon's part; his silence was after all the same old silence, the fruit
+of other hours and places, the stillness to which Georgina listened,
+while he felt her eager eyes fairly eat into his face, so that his
+cheeks burned with the touch of them. The moments stood before him in
+their turn; each one was distinct. "Ah, well," said Mr. Roy, "perhaps I
+interrupt,--I 'll just dash off my note" Benyon knew that he was rather
+bewildered, that he was making a pretext, that he was leaving the room;
+knew presently that Georgina again stood before him alone.
+
+"You are exactly the man I thought you!" she announced, as joyously as
+if she had won a bet.
+
+"You are the most horrible woman I can imagine. Good God! if I _had_ had
+to live with you!" That is what he said to her in answer.
+
+Even at this she never flushed; she continued to smile in triumph. "He
+adores me--but what's that to you? Of course you have all the future,"
+she went on; "but I know you as if I had made you!"
+
+Benyon reflected a moment "If he adores you, you are all right. If
+our divorce is pronounced, you will be free, and then he can marry you
+properly, which he would like ever so much better."
+
+"It's too touching to hear you reason about it. Fancy me telling such a
+hideous story--about myself--me--_me_!" And she touched her breasts with
+her white fingers.
+
+Benyon gave her a look that was charged with all the sickness of his
+helpless rage. "You--_you_!" he repeated, as he turned away from her and
+passed through the door which Mr. Roy had left open.
+
+She followed him into the hall, she was close behind him; he moved
+before her as she pressed. "There was one more reason," she said. "I
+would n't be forbidden. It was my hideous pride. That's what prevents me
+now."
+
+"I don't care what it is," Benyon answered, wearily, with his hand on
+the knob of the door.
+
+She laid hers on his shoulder; he stood there an instant feeling it,
+wishing that her loathsome touch gave him the right to strike her to the
+earth,--to strike her so that she should never rise again.
+
+"How clever you are, and intelligent always,--as you used to be; to
+feel so perfectly and know so well, without more scenes, that it's
+hopeless--my ever consenting! If I have, with you, the shame of having
+made you promise, let me at least have the profit!"
+
+His back had been turned to her, but at this he glanced round. "To hear
+you talk of shame--!"
+
+"You don't know what I have gone through; but, of course, I don't ask
+any pity from you. Only I should like to say something kind to you
+before we part I admire you, esteem you: I don't many people! Who will
+ever tell her, if you don't? How will she ever know, then? She will be
+as safe as I am. You know what that is," said Georgina, smiling.
+
+He had opened the door while she spoke, apparently not heeding her,
+thinking only of getting away from her forever. In reality he heard
+every word she said, and felt to his marrow the lowered, suggestive
+tone in which she made him that last recommendation. Outside, on the
+steps--she stood there in the doorway--he gave her his last look. "I
+only hope you will die. I shall pray for that!" And he descended into
+the street and took his way.
+
+It was after this that his real temptation came. Not the temptation to
+return betrayal for betrayal; that passed away even in a few days,
+for he simply knew that he couldn't break his promise, that it imposed
+itself on him as stubbornly as the color of his eyes or the stammer of
+his lips; it had gone forth into the world to live for itself, and was
+far beyond his reach or his authority. But the temptation to go through
+the form of a marriage with Kate Theory, to let her suppose that he was
+as free as herself, and that their children, if they should have any,
+would, before the law, have a right to exist,--this attractive idea held
+him fast for many weeks, and caused him to pass some haggard nights and
+days. It was perfectly possible she might learn his secret, and that,
+as no one could either suspect it or have an interest in bringing it to
+light, they both might live and die in security and honor. This vision
+fascinated him; it was, I say, a real temptation. He thought of other
+solutions,--of telling her that he was married (without telling her
+to whom), and inducing her to overlook such an accident, and content
+herself with a ceremony in which the world would see no flaw. But after
+all the contortions of his spirit it remained as clear to him as before
+that dishonor was in everything but renunciation. So, at last, he
+renounced. He took two steps which attested ths act to himself. He
+addressed an urgent request to the Secretary of the Navy that he might,
+with as little delay as possible, be despatched on another long voyage;
+and he returned to Boston to tell Kate Theory that they must wait. He
+could explain so little that, say what he would, he was aware that he
+could not make his conduct seem natural, and he saw that the girl
+only trusted him,--that she never understood. She trusted without
+understanding, and she agreed to wait. When the writer of these pages
+last heard of the pair they were waiting still.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgina's Reasons, by Henry James
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+    <title>
+      Georgina's Reasons, by Henry James
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Georgina's Reasons, by Henry James
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
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+
+
+Title: Georgina's Reasons
+
+Author: Henry James
+
+Release Date: June 8, 2007 [EBook #21771]
+Last Updated: September 18, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGINA'S REASONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      GEORGINA&rsquo;S REASONS
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      By Henry James <br /> <br /> <br /> 1885
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      Contents
+    </h2>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART"> PART I. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART2"> PART II. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> III. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> IV. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_PART3"> PART III. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> V. </a>
+          </p>
+          <p class="toc">
+            <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VI. </a>
+          </p>
+          <a name="link2H_PART" id="link2H_PART">
+          <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      PART I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      I.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      She was certainly a singular girl, and if he felt at the end that he did
+      n&rsquo;t know her nor understand her, it is not surprising that he should have
+      felt it at the beginning. But he felt at the beginning what he did not
+      feel at the end, that her singularity took the form of a charm which&mdash;once
+      circumstances had made them so intimate&mdash;it was impossible to resist
+      or conjure away. He had a strange impression (it amounted at times to a
+      positive distress, and shot through the sense of pleasure&mdash;morally
+      speaking&mdash;with the acuteness of a sudden twinge of neuralgia) that it
+      would be better for each of them that they should break off short and
+      never see each other again. In later years he called this feeling a
+      foreboding, and remembered two or three occasions when he had been on the
+      point of expressing it to Georgina. Of course, in fact, he never expressed
+      it; there were plenty of good reasons for that. Happy love is not disposed
+      to assume disagreeable duties, and Raymond Benyon&rsquo;s love was happy, in
+      spite of grave presentiments, in spite of the singularity of his mistress
+      and the insufferable rudeness of her parents. She was a tall, fair girl,
+      with a beautiful cold eye and a smile of which the perfect sweetness,
+      proceeding from the lips, was full of compensation; she had auburn hair of
+      a hue that could be qualified as nothing less than gorgeous, and she
+      seemed to move through life with a stately grace, as she would have walked
+      through an old-fashioned minuet. Gentlemen connected with the navy have
+      the advantage of seeing many types of women; they are able to compare the
+      ladies of New York with those of Valparaiso, and those of Halifax with
+      those of the Cape of Good Hope. Eaymond Benyon had had these advantages,
+      and being very fond of women he had learnt his lesson; he was in a
+      position to appreciate Georgina Gressie&rsquo;s fine points. She looked like a
+      duchess,&mdash;I don&rsquo;t mean that in foreign ports Benyon had associated
+      with duchesses,&mdash;and she took everything so seriously. That was
+      flattering for the young man, who was only a lieutenant, detailed for duty
+      at the Brooklyn navy-yard, without a penny in the world but his pay, with
+      a set of plain, numerous, seafaring, God-fearing relations in New
+      Hampshire, a considerable appearance of talent, a feverish, disguised
+      ambition, and a slight impediment in his speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was a spare, tough young man, his dark hair was straight and fine, and
+      his face, a trifle pale, was smooth and carefully drawn. He stammered a
+      little, blushing when he did so, at long intervals. I scarcely know how he
+      appeared on shipboard, but on shore, in his civilian&rsquo;s garb, which was of
+      the neatest, he had as little as possible an aroma of winds and waves. He
+      was neither salt nor brown, nor red, nor particularly &ldquo;hearty.&rdquo; He never
+      twitched up his trousers, nor, so far as one could see, did he, with his
+      modest, attentive manner, carry himself as one accustomed to command. Of
+      course, as a subaltern, he had more to do in the way of obeying. He looked
+      as if he followed some sedentary calling, and was, indeed, supposed to be
+      decidedly intellectual. He was a lamb with women, to whose charms he was,
+      as I have hinted, susceptible; but with men he was different, and, I
+      believe, as much of a wolf as was necessary. He had a manner of adoring
+      the handsome, insolent queen of his affections (I will explain in a moment
+      why I call her insolent); indeed, he looked up to her literally as well as
+      sentimentally; for she was the least bit the taller of the two. He had met
+      her the summer before, on the piazza of a hotel at Fort Hamilton, to
+      which, with a brother officer, in a dusty buggy, he had driven over from
+      Brooklyn to spend a tremendously hot Sunday,&mdash;the kind of day when
+      the navy-yard was loathsome; and the acquaintance had been renewed by his
+      calling in Twelfth Street on New-Year&rsquo;s Day,&mdash;a considerable time to
+      wait for a pretext, but which proved the impression had not been
+      transitory. The acquaintance ripened, thanks to a zealous cultivation (on
+      his part) of occasions which Providence, it must be confessed, placed at
+      his disposal none too liberally; so that now Georgina took up all his
+      thoughts and a considerable part of his time. He was in love with her,
+      beyond a doubt; but he could not flatter himself that she was in love with
+      him, though she appeared willing (what was so strange) to quarrel with her
+      family about him. He did n&rsquo;t see how she could really care for him,&mdash;she
+      seemed marked out by nature for so much greater a fortune; and he used to
+      say to her, &ldquo;Ah, you don&rsquo;t&mdash;there&rsquo;s no use talking, you don&rsquo;t&mdash;really
+      care for me at all!&rdquo; To which she answered, &ldquo;Really? You are very
+      particular. It seems to me it&rsquo;s real enough if I let you touch one of my
+      fingertips! &ldquo;That was one of her ways of being insolent Another was simply
+      her manner of looking at him, or at other people (when they spoke to her),
+      with her hard, divine blue eye,&mdash;looking quietly, amusedly, with the
+      air of considering (wholly from her own point of view) what they might
+      have said, and then turning her head or her back, while, without taking
+      the trouble to answer them, she broke into a short, liquid, irrelevant
+      laugh. This may seem to contradict what I said just now about her taking
+      the young lieutenant in the navy seriously. What I mean is that she
+      appeared to take him more seriously than she took anything else. She said
+      to him once, &ldquo;At any rate you have the merit of not being a shop-keeper;&rdquo;
+       and it was by this epithet she was pleased to designate most of the young
+      men who at that time flourished in the best society of New York. Even if
+      she had rather a free way of expressing general indifference, a young lady
+      is supposed to be serious enough when she consents to marry you. For the
+      rest, as regards a certain haughtiness that might be observed in Geoigina
+      Gressie, my story will probably throw sufficient light upon it She
+      remarked to Benyon once that it was none of his business why she liked
+      him, but that, to please herself, she did n&rsquo;t mind telling him she thought
+      the great Napoleon, before he was celebrated, before he had command of the
+      army of Italy, must have looked something like him; and she sketched in a
+      few words the sort of figure she imagined the incipient Bonaparte to have
+      been,&mdash;short, lean, pale, poor, intellectual, and with a tremendous
+      future under his hat Benyon asked himself whether <i>he</i> had a
+      tremendous future, and what in the world Geoigina expected of him in the
+      coming years. He was flattered at the comparison, he was ambitious enough
+      not to be frightened at it, and he guessed that she perceived a certain
+      analogy between herself and the Empress Josephine. She would make a very
+      good empress. That was true; Georgina was remarkably imperial. This may
+      not at first seem to make it more clear why she should take into her favor
+      an aspirant who, on the face of the matter, was not original, and whose
+      Corsica was a flat New England seaport; but it afterward became plain that
+      he owed his brief happiness&mdash;it was very brief&mdash;to her father&rsquo;s
+      opposition; her father&rsquo;s and her mother&rsquo;s, and even her uncles&rsquo; and her
+      aunts&rsquo;. In those days, in New York, the different members of a family took
+      an interest in its alliances, and the house of Gressie looked askance at
+      an engagement between the most beautiful of its daughters and a young man
+      who was not in a paying business. Georgina declared that they were
+      meddlesome and vulgar,&mdash;she could sacrifice her own people, in that
+      way, without a scruple,&mdash;and Benyon&rsquo;s position improved from the
+      moment that Mr. Gressie&mdash;ill-advised Mr. Gressie&mdash;ordered the
+      girl to have nothing to do with him. Georgina was imperial in this&mdash;that
+      she wouldn&rsquo;t put up with an order. When, in the house in Twelfth Street,
+      it began to be talked about that she had better be sent to Europe with
+      some eligible friend, Mrs. Portico, for instance, who was always planning
+      to go, and who wanted as a companion some young mind, fresh from manuals
+      and extracts, to serve as a fountain of history and geography,&mdash;when
+      this scheme for getting Georgina out of the way began to be aired, she
+      immediately said to Raymond Benyon, &ldquo;Oh, yes, I &lsquo;ll marry you!&rdquo; She said
+      it in such an off-hand way that, deeply as he desired her, he was almost
+      tempted to answer, &ldquo;But, my dear, have you really thought about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This little drama went on, in New York, in the ancient days, when Twelfth
+      Street had but lately ceased to be suburban, when the squares had wooden
+      palings, which were not often painted; when there were poplars in
+      important thoroughfares and pigs in the lateral ways; when the theatres
+      were miles distant from Madison Square, and the battered rotunda of Castle
+      Garden echoed with expensive vocal music; when &ldquo;the park&rdquo; meant the
+      grass-plats of the city hall, and the Bloomingdale road was an eligible
+      drive; when Hoboken, of a summer afternoon, was a genteel resort, and the
+      handsomest house in town was on the corner of the Fifth Avenue and
+      Fifteenth Street. This will strike the modern reader, I fear, as rather a
+      primitive epoch; but I am not sure that the strength of human passions is
+      in proportion to the elongation of a city. Several of them, at any rate,
+      the most robust and most familiar,&mdash;love, ambition, jealousy,
+      resentment, greed,&mdash;subsisted in considerable force in the little
+      circle at which we have glanced, where a view by no means favorable was
+      taken of Raymond Benyon&rsquo;s attentions to Miss Gressie. Unanimity was a
+      family trait among these people (Georgina was an exception), especially in
+      regard to the important concerns of life, such as marriages and closing
+      scenes. The Gressies hung together; they were accustomed to do well for
+      themselves and for each other. They did everything well: got themselves
+      born well (they thought it excellent to be born a Gressie), lived well,
+      married well, died well, and managed to be well spoken of afterward. In
+      deference to this last-mentioned habit, I must be careful what I say of
+      them. They took an interest in each other&rsquo;s concerns, an interest that
+      could never be regarded as of a meddlesome nature, inasmuch as they all
+      thought alike about all their affairs, and interference took the happy
+      form of congratulation and encouragement. These affairs were invariably
+      lucky, and, as a general thing, no Gressie had anything to do but feel
+      that another Gressie had been almost as shrewd and decided as he himself
+      would have been. The great exception to that, as I have said, was this
+      case of Georgina, who struck such a false note, a note that startled them
+      all, when she told her father that she should like to unite herself to a
+      young man engaged in the least paying business that any Gressie had ever
+      heard of. Her two sisters had married into the most flourishing firms, and
+      it was not to be thought of that&mdash;with twenty cousins growing up
+      around her&mdash;she should put down the standard of success. Her mother
+      had told her a fortnight before this that she must request Mr. Benyon to
+      cease coming to the house; for hitherto his suit had been of the most
+      public and resolute character. He had been conveyed up town from the
+      Brooklyn ferry, in the &ldquo;stage,&rdquo; on certain evenings, had asked for Miss
+      Georgina at the door of the house in Twelfth Street, and had sat with her
+      in the front parlor if her parents happened to occupy the back, or in the
+      back if the family had disposed itself in the front. Georgina, in her way,
+      was a dutiful girl, and she immediately repeated her mother&rsquo;s admonition
+      to Beuyon. He was not surprised, for though he was aware that he had not,
+      as yet, a great knowledge of society, he flattered himself he could tell
+      when&mdash;and where&mdash;a young man was not wanted. There were houses
+      in Brooklyn where such an animal was much appreciated, and there the signs
+      were quite different They had been discouraging&mdash;except on Georgina&rsquo;s
+      pail&mdash;from the first of his calling in Twelfth Street Mr. and Mrs.
+      Gressie used to look at each other in silence when he came in, and indulge
+      in strange, perpendicular salutations, without any shaking of hands.
+      People did that at Portsmouth, N.H., when they were glad to see you; but
+      in New York there was more luxuriance, and gesture had a different value.
+      He had never, in Twelfth Street, been asked to &ldquo;take anything,&rdquo; though the
+      house had a delightful suggestion, a positive aroma, of sideboards,&mdash;as
+      if there were mahogany &ldquo;cellarettes&rdquo; under every table. The old people,
+      moreover, had repeatedly expressed surprise at the quantity of leisure
+      that officers in the navy seemed to enjoy. The only way in which they had
+      not made themselves offensive was by always remaining in the other room;
+      though at times even this detachment, to which he owed some delightful
+      moments, presented itself to Benyon as a form of disapprobation. Of
+      course, after Mrs. Gressie&rsquo;s message, his visits were practically at an
+      end; he would n&rsquo;t give the girl up, but he would n&rsquo;t be beholden to her
+      father for the opportunity to converse with her. Nothing was left for the
+      tender couple&mdash;there was a curious mutual mistrust in their
+      tenderness&mdash;but to meet in the squares, or in the topmost streets, or
+      in the sidemost avenues, on the afternoons of spring. It was especially
+      during this phase of their relations that Georgina struck Benyon as
+      imperial Her whole person seemed to exhale a tranquil, happy consciousness
+      of having broken a law. She never told him how she arranged the matter at
+      home, how she found it possible always to keep the appointments (to meet
+      him out of the house) that she so boldly made, in what degree she
+      dissimulated to her parents, and how much, in regard to their continued
+      acquaintance, the old people suspected and accepted. If Mr. and Mrs.
+      Gressie had forbidden him the house, it was not, apparently, because they
+      wished her to walk with him in the Tenth Avenue or to sit at his side
+      under the blossoming lilacs in Stuyvesant Square. He didn&rsquo;t believe that
+      she told lies in Twelfth Street; he thought she was too imperial to lie;
+      and he wondered what she said to her mother when, at the end of nearly a
+      whole afternoon of vague peregrination with her lover, this bridling,
+      bristling matron asked her where she had been. Georgina was capable of
+      simply telling the truth; and yet if she simply told the truth, it was a
+      wonder that she had not been simply packed off to Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon&rsquo;s ignorance of her pretexts is a proof that this rather oddly-mated
+      couple never arrived at perfect intimacy,&mdash;in spite of a fact which
+      remains to be related. He thought of this afterwards, and thought how
+      strange it was that he had not felt more at liberty to ask her what she
+      did for him, and how she did it, and how much she suffered for him. She
+      would probably not have admitted that she suffered at all, and she had no
+      wish to pose for a martyr. Benyon remembered this, as I say, in the after
+      years, when he tried to explain to himself certain things which simply
+      puzzled him; it came back to him with the vision, already faded, of shabby
+      cross-streets, straggling toward rivers, with red sunsets, seen through a
+      haze of dust, at the end; a vista through which the figures of a young man
+      and a girl slowly receded and disappeared,&mdash;strolling side by side,
+      with the relaxed pace of desultory talk, but more closely linked as they
+      passed into the distance, linked by its at last appearing safe to them&mdash;in
+      the Tenth Avenue&mdash;that the young lady should take his arm. They were
+      always approaching that inferior thoroughfare; but he could scarcely have
+      told you, in those days, what else they were approaching. He had nothing
+      in the world but his pay, and he felt that this was rather a &ldquo;mean&rdquo; income
+      to offer Miss Gressie. Therefore he did n&rsquo;t put it forward; what he
+      offered, instead, was the expression&mdash;crude often, and almost
+      boyishly extravagant&mdash;of a delighted admiration of her beauty, the
+      tenderest tones of his voice, the softest assurances of his eye and the
+      most insinuating pressure of her hand at those moments when she consented
+      to place it in his arm. All this was an eloquence which, if necessary,
+      might have been condensed into a single sentence; but those few words were
+      scarcely needful, when it was as plain that he expected&mdash;in general&mdash;she
+      would marry him, as it was indefinite that he counted upon her for living
+      on a few hundreds a year. If she had been a different girl he might have
+      asked her to wait,&mdash;might have talked to her of the coming of better
+      days, of his prospective promotion, of its being wiser, perhaps, that he
+      should leave the navy and look about for a more lucrative career. With
+      Georgina it was difficult to go into such questions; she had no taste
+      whatever for detail. She was delightful as a woman to love, because when a
+      young man is in love he discovers that; but she could not be called
+      helpful, for she never suggested anything. That is, she never had done so
+      till the day she really proposed&mdash;for that was the form it took&mdash;to
+      become his wife without more delay. &ldquo;Oh, yes, I will marry you;&rdquo; these
+      words, which I quoted a little way back, were not so much the answer to
+      something he had said at the moment, as the light conclusion of a report
+      she had just made, for the first time, of her actual situation in her
+      father&rsquo;s house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I shall have to see less of you,&rdquo; she had begun by saying.
+      &ldquo;They watch me so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very little already,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;What is once or twice a week?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s easy for you to say. You are your own master, but you don&rsquo;t know
+      what I go through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do they make it very bad for you, dearest? Do they make scenes?&rdquo; Benyon
+      asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course not. Don&rsquo;t you know us enough to know how we behave? No
+      scenes,&mdash;that would be a relief. However, I never make them myself,
+      and I never will&mdash;that&rsquo;s one comfort for you, for the future, if you
+      want to know. Father and mother keep very quiet, looking at me as if I
+      were one of the lost, with hard, screwing eyes, like gimlets. To me they
+      scarcely say anything, but they talk it all over with each other, and try
+      and decide what is to be done. It&rsquo;s my belief that father has written to
+      the people in Washington&mdash;what do you call it! the Department&mdash;to
+      have you moved away from Brooklyn,&mdash;to have you sent to sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess that won&rsquo;t do much good. They want me in Brooklyn, they don&rsquo;t
+      want me at sea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they are capable of going to Europe for a year, on purpose to take
+      me,&rdquo; Geoigina said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can they take you, if you won&rsquo;t go? And if you should go, what good
+      would it do, if you were only to find me here when you came back, just the
+      same as you left me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, well!&rdquo; said Georgina, with her lovely smile, &ldquo;of course they think
+      that absence would cure me of&mdash;cure me of&mdash;&rdquo; And she paused,
+      with a certain natural modesty, not saying exactly of what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cure you of what, darling? Say it, please say it,&rdquo; the young man
+      murmured, drawing her hand surreptitiously into his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of my absurd infatuation!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And would it, dearest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, very likely. But I don&rsquo;t mean to try. I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t go to Europe,&mdash;not
+      when I don&rsquo;t want to. But it&rsquo;s better I should see less of you,&mdash;even
+      that I should appear&mdash;a little&mdash;to give you up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little? What do you call a little?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina said nothing, for a moment. &ldquo;Well, that, for instance, you should
+      n&rsquo;t hold my hand quite so tight!&rdquo; And she disengaged this conscious member
+      from the pressure of his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good will that do?&rdquo; Benyon asked,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will make them think it &lsquo;s all over,&mdash;that we have agreed to
+      part.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And as we have done nothing of the kind, how will that help us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had stopped at the crossing of a street; a heavy dray was lumbering
+      slowly past them. Georgina, as she stood there, turned her face to her
+      lover, and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At last: &ldquo;Nothing
+      will help us; I don&rsquo;t think we are very happy,&rdquo; she answered, while her
+      strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about her beautiful lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand how you see things. I thought you were going to say
+      you would marry me!&rdquo; Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though the
+      dray had passed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, I will marry you!&rdquo; And she moved away, across the street. That
+      was the manner in which she had said it, and it was very characteristic of
+      her. When he saw that she really meant it, he wished they were somewhere
+      else,&mdash;he hardly knew where the proper place would be,&mdash;so that
+      he might take her in his arms. Nevertheless, before they separated that
+      day he had said to her he hoped she remembered they would be very poor,
+      reminding her how great a change she would find it She answered that she
+      should n&rsquo;t mind, and presently she said that if this was all that
+      prevented them the sooner they were married the better. The next time he
+      saw her she was quite of the same opinion; but he found, to his surprise,
+      it was now her conviction that she had better not leave her father&rsquo;s
+      house. The ceremony should take place secretly, of course; but they would
+      wait awhile to let their union be known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good will it do us, then?&rdquo; Raymond Benyon asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina colored. &ldquo;Well, if you don&rsquo;t know, I can&rsquo;t tell you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then it seemed to him that he did know. Yet, at the same time, he could
+      not see why, once the knot was tied, secrecy should be required. When he
+      asked what special event they were to wait for, and what should give them
+      the signal to appear as man and wife, she answered that her parents would
+      probably forgive her, if they were to discover, not too abruptly, after
+      six months, that she had taken the great step. Benyon supposed that she
+      had ceased to care whether they forgave her or not; but he had already
+      perceived that women are full of inconsistencies. He had believed her
+      capable of marrying him out of bravado, but the pleasure of defiance was
+      absent if the marriage was kept to themselves. Now, too, it appeared that
+      she was not especially anxious to defy,&mdash;she was disposed rather to
+      manage, to cultivate opportunities and reap the fruits of a waiting game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave it to me. Leave it to me. You are only a blundering man,&rdquo; Georgina
+      said. &ldquo;I shall know much better than you the right moment for saying,
+      &lsquo;Well, you may as well make the best of it, because we have already done
+      it!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That might very well be, but Benyon did n&rsquo;t quite understand, and he was
+      awkwardly anxious (for a lover) till it came over him afresh that there
+      was one thing at any rate in his favor, which was simply that the
+      loveliest girl he had ever seen was ready to throw herself into his arms.
+      When he said to her, &ldquo;There is one thing I hate in this plan of yours,&mdash;that,
+      for ever so few weeks, so few days, your father should support my wife,&rdquo;&mdash;when
+      he made this homely remark, with a little flush of sincerity in his face,
+      she gave him a specimen of that unanswerable laugh of hers, and declared
+      that it would serve Mr. Gressie right for being so barbarous and so
+      horrid. It was Benyon&rsquo;s view that from the moment she disobeyed her
+      father, she ought to cease to avail herself of his protection; but I am
+      bound to add that he was not particularly surprised at finding this a kind
+      of honor in which her feminine nature was little versed. To make her his
+      wife first&mdash;at the earliest moment&mdash;whenever she would, and
+      trust to fortune, and the new influence he should have, to give him, as
+      soon thereafter as possible, complete possession of her,&mdash;this rather
+      promptly presented itself to the young man as the course most worthy of a
+      person of spirit. He would be only a pedant who would take nothing because
+      he could not get everything at once. They wandered further than usual this
+      afternoon, and the dusk was thick by the time he brought her back to her
+      father&rsquo;s door. It was not his habit to como so near it, but to-day they
+      had so much to talk about that he actually stood with her for ten minutes
+      at the foot of the steps. He was keeping her hand in his, and she let it
+      rest there while she said,&mdash;by way of a remark that should sum up all
+      their reasons and reconcile their differences,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s one great thing it will do, you know; it will make me safe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Safe from what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From marrying any one else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my girl, if you were to do that&mdash;!&rdquo; Benyon exclaimed; but he did
+      n&rsquo;t mention the other branch of the contingency. Instead of this, he
+      looked up at the blind face of the house&mdash;there were only dim lights
+      in two or three windows, and no apparent eyes&mdash;and up and down the
+      empty street, vague in the friendly twilight; after which he drew Georgina
+      Gressie to his breast and gave her a long, passionate kiss. Yes,
+      decidedly, he felt, they had better be married. She had run quickly up the
+      steps, and while she stood there, with her hand on the bell, she almost
+      hissed at him, under her breath, &ldquo;Go away, go away; Amanda&rsquo;s coming!&rdquo;
+       Amanda was the parlor-maid, and it was in those terms that the Twelfth
+      Street Juliet dismissed her Brooklyn Romeo. As he wandered back into the
+      Fifth Avenue, where the evening air was conscious of a vernal fragrance
+      from the shrubs in the little precinct of the pretty Gothic church
+      ornamenting that charming part of the street, he was too absorbed in the
+      impression of the delightful contact from which the girl had violently
+      released herself to reflect that the great reason she had mentioned a
+      moment before was a reason for their marrying, of course, but not in the
+      least a reason for their not making it public. But, as I said in the
+      opening lines of this chapter, if he did not understand his mistress&rsquo;s
+      motives at the end, he cannot be expected to have understood them at the
+      beginning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico, as we know, was always talking about going to Europe; but
+      she had not yet&mdash;I mean a year after the incident I have just related&mdash;put
+      her hand upon a youthful cicerone. Petticoats, of course, were required;
+      it was necessary that her companion should be of the sex which sinks most
+      naturally upon benches, in galleries and cathredrals, and pauses most
+      frequently upon staircases that ascend to celebrated views. She was a
+      widow, with a good fortune and several sons, all of whom were in Wall
+      Street, and none of them capable of the relaxed pace at which she expected
+      to take her foreign tour. They were all in a state of tension. They went
+      through life standing. She was a short, broad, high-colored woman, with a
+      loud voice, and superabundant black hair, arranged in a way peculiar to
+      herself,&mdash;with so many combs and bands that it had the appearance of
+      a national coiffure. There was an impression in New York, about 1845, that
+      the style was Danish; some one had said something about having seen it in
+      Schleswig-Holstein.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico had a bold, humorous, slightly flamboyant look; people who
+      saw her for the first time received an impression that her late husband
+      had married the daughter of a barkeeper or the proprietress of a
+      menageria. Her high, hoarse, good-natured voice seemed to connect her in
+      some way with public life; it was not pretty enough to suggest that she
+      might have been an actress. These ideas quickly passed away, however, even
+      if you were not sufficiently initiated to know&mdash;as all the Grossies,
+      for instance, knew so well&mdash;that her origin, so far from being
+      enveloped in mystery, was almost the sort of thing she might have boasted
+      of. But in spite of the high pitch of her appearance, she didn&rsquo;t boast of
+      anything; she was a genial, easy, comical, irreverent person, with a large
+      charity, a democratic, fraternizing turn of mind, and a contempt for many
+      worldly standards, which she expressed not in the least in general axioms
+      (for she had a mortal horror of philosophy), but in violent ejaculations
+      on particular occasions. She had not a grain of moral timidity, and she
+      fronted a delicate social problem as sturdily as she would have barred the
+      way of a gentleman she might have met in her vestibule with the
+      plate-chest The only thing which prevented her being a bore in orthodox
+      circles was that she was incapable of discussion. She never lost her
+      temper, but she lost her vocabulary, and ended quietly by praying that
+      Heaven would give her an opportunity to <i>show</i> what she believed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was an old friend of Mr. and Mrs. Gressie, who esteemed her for the
+      antiquity of her lineage and the frequency of her subscriptions, and to
+      whom she rendered the service of making them feel liberal,&mdash;like
+      people too sure of their own position to be frightened. She was their
+      indulgence, their dissipation, their point of contact with dangerous
+      heresies; so long as they continued to see her they could not be accused
+      of being narrow-minded,&mdash;a matter as to which they were perhaps
+      vaguely conscious of the necessity of taking their precautions. Mrs.
+      Portico never asked herself whether she liked the Gressies; she had no
+      disposition for morbid analysis, she accepted transmitted associations,
+      and she found, somehow, that her acquaintance with these people helped her
+      to relieve herself. She was always making scenes in their drawing-room,
+      scenes half indignant, half jocose, like all her manifestations, to which
+      it must be confessed that they adapted themselves beautifully. They never
+      &ldquo;met&rdquo; her in the language of controversy; but always collected to watch
+      her, with smiles and comfortable platitudes, as if they envied her
+      superior richness of temperament She took an interest in Georgina, who
+      seemed to her different from the others, with suggestions about her of
+      being likely not to marry so unrefreshingly as her sisters had done, and
+      of a high, bold standard of duty. Her sisters had married from duty, but
+      Mrs. Portico would rather have chopped off one of her large, plump hands
+      than behave herself so well as that She had, in her daughterless
+      condition, a certain ideal of a girl that should be beautiful and
+      romantic, with lustrous eyes, and a little persecuted, so that she, Mrs.
+      Portico, might get her out of her troubles. She looked to Georgina, to a
+      considerable degree, to gratify her in this way; but she had really never
+      understood Geoigina at all She ought to have been shrewd, but she lacked
+      this refinement, and she never understood anything until after many
+      disappointments and vexations. It was difficult to startle her, but she
+      was much startled by a communication that this young lady made her one
+      fine spring morning. With her florid appearance and her speculative mind,
+      she was probably the most innocent woman in New York.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina came very early,&mdash;earlier even than visits were paid in New
+      York thirty years ago; and instantly, without any preface, looking her
+      straight in the face, told Mrs. Portico that she was in great trouble and
+      must appeal to her for assistance. Georgina had in her aspect no symptom
+      of distress; she was as fresh and beautiful as the April day itself; she
+      held up her head and smiled, with a sort of familiar bravado, looking like
+      a young woman who would naturally be on good terms with fortune. It was
+      not in the least in the tone of a person making a confession or relating a
+      misadventure that she presently said: &ldquo;Well, you must know, to begin with&mdash;of
+      course, it will surprise you&mdash;that I &lsquo;m married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Married, Georgina Grossie!&rdquo; Mrs. Portico repeated in her most resonant
+      tones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina got up, walked with her majestic step across the room, and closed
+      the door. Then she stood there, her back pressed against the mahogany
+      panels, indicating only by the distance she had placed between herself and
+      her hostess the consciousness of an irregular position. &ldquo;I am not Georgina
+      Gressie! I am Georgina Benyon,&mdash;and it has become plain, within a
+      short time, that the natural consequence will take place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico was altogether bewildered. &ldquo;The natural consequence?&rdquo; she
+      exclaimed, staring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of one&rsquo;s being married, of course,&mdash;I suppose you know what that is.
+      No one must know anything about it. I want you to take me to Europe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico now slowly rose from her place, and approached her visitor,
+      looking at her from head to foot as she did so, as if to challenge the
+      truth of her remarkable announcement. She rested her hands on Georgina&rsquo;s
+      shoulders a moment, gazing into her blooming face, and then she drew her
+      closer and kissed her. In this way the girl was conducted back to the
+      sofa, where, in a conversation of extreme intimacy, she opened Mrs.
+      Portico&rsquo;s eyes wider than they had ever been opened before. She was
+      Raymond Benyon&rsquo;s wife; they had been married a year, but no one knew
+      anything about it. She had kept it from every one, and she meant to go on
+      keeping it. The ceremony had taken place in a little Episcopal church at
+      Harlem, one Sunday afternoon, after the service. There was no one in that
+      dusty suburb who knew them; the clergyman, vexed at being detained, and
+      wanting to go home to tea, had made no trouble; he tied the knot before
+      they could turn round. It was ridiculous how easy it had been. Raymond had
+      told him frankly that it must all be under the rose, as the young lady&rsquo;s
+      family disapproved of what she was doing. But she was of legal age, and
+      perfectly free; he could see that for himself. The parson had given a
+      grunt as he looked at her over his spectacles. It was not very
+      complimentary; it seemed to say that she was indeed no chicken. Of course
+      she looked old for a girl; but she was not a girl now, was she? Raymond
+      had certified his own identity as an officer in the United States Navy (he
+      had papers, besides his uniform, which he wore), and introduced the
+      clergyman to a friend he had brought with him, who was also in the navy, a
+      venerable paymaster. It was he who gave Georgina away, as it were; he was
+      an old, old man, a regular grandmother, and perfectly safe. He had been
+      married three times himself. After the ceremony she went back to her
+      father&rsquo;s; but she saw Mr. Benyon the next day. After that, she saw him&mdash;for
+      a little while&mdash;pretty often. He was always begging her to come to
+      him altogether; she must do him that justice. But she wouldn&rsquo;t&mdash;she
+      wouldn&rsquo;t now&mdash;perhaps she would n&rsquo;t ever. She had her reasons, which
+      seemed to her very good, but were very difficult to explain. She would
+      tell Mrs. Portico in plenty of time what they were. But that was not the
+      question now, whether they were good or bad; the question was for her to
+      get away from the country for several months,&mdash;far away from any one
+      who had ever known her. She would like to go to some little place in Spain
+      or Italy, where she should be out of the world until everything was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico&rsquo;s heart gave a jump as this serene, handsome, familiar girl,
+      sitting there with a hand in hers, and pouring forth this extraordinary
+      tale, spoke of everything being over. There was a glossy coldness in it,
+      an unnatural lightness, which suggested&mdash;poor Mrs. Portico scarcely
+      knew what. If Georgina was to become a mother, it was to be supposed she
+      was to remain a mother. She said there was a beautiful place in Italy&mdash;Genoa&mdash;of
+      which Raymond had often spoken&mdash;and where he had been more than once,&mdash;he
+      admired it so much; could n&rsquo;t they go there and be quiet for a little
+      while? She was asking a great favor,&mdash;that she knew very well; but if
+      Mrs. Portico would n&rsquo;t take her, she would find some one who would. They
+      had talked of such a journey so often; and, certainly, if Mrs. Portico had
+      been willing before, she ought to be much more willing now. The girl
+      declared that she must do something,&mdash;go somewhere,&mdash;keep, in
+      one way or another, her situation unperceived. There was no use talking to
+      her about telling,&mdash;she would rather die than tell. No doubt it
+      seemed strange, but she knew what she was about. No one had guessed
+      anything yet,&mdash;she had succeeded perfectly in doing what she wished,&mdash;and
+      her father and mother believed&mdash;as Mrs. Portico had believed,&mdash;had
+      n&rsquo;t she?&mdash;that, any time the last year, Raymond Beuyon was less to
+      her than he had been before. Well, so he was; yes, he was. He had gone
+      away&mdash;he was off, Heaven knew where&mdash;in the Pacific; she was
+      alone, and now she would remain alone. The family believed it was all
+      over,&mdash;with his going back to his ship, and other things, and they
+      were right: for it <i>was</i> over, or it would be soon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico, by this time, had grown almost afraid of her young friend;
+      <i>she</i> had so little fear, she had even, as it were, so little shame.
+      If the good lady had been accustomed to analyzing things a little more,
+      she would have said she had so little conscience. She looked at Georgina
+      with dilated eyes,&mdash;her visitor was so much the calmer of the two,&mdash;and
+      exclaimed, and murmured, and sunk back, and sprung forward, and wiped her
+      forehead with her pocket-handkerchief! There were things she didn&rsquo;t
+      understand; that they should all have been so deceived, that they should
+      have thought Georgina was giving her lover up (they flattered themselves
+      she was discouraged, or had grown tired of him), when she was really only
+      making it impossible she should belong to any one else. And with this, her
+      inconsequence, her capriciousness, her absence of motive, the way she
+      contradicted herself, her apparent belief that she could hush up such a
+      situation forever! There was nothing shameful in having married poor Mr.
+      Benyon, even in a little church at Harlem, and being given away by a
+      paymaster. It was much more shameful to be in such a state without being
+      prepared to make the proper explanations. And she must have seen very
+      little of her husband; she must have given him up&mdash;so far as meeting
+      him went&mdash;almost as soon as she had taken him. Had not Mrs. Gressie
+      herself told Mrs. Portico (in the preceding October, it must have been)
+      that there now would be no need of sending Georgina away, inasmuch as the
+      affair with the little navy man&mdash;a project in every way so unsuitable&mdash;had
+      quite blown over?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After our marriage I saw him less, I saw him a great deal less,&rdquo; Georgina
+      explained; but her explanation only appeared to make the mystery more
+      dense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see, in that case, what on earth you married him for!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had to be more careful; I wished to appear to have given him up. Of
+      course we were really more intimate,&mdash;I saw him differently,&rdquo;
+       Georgina said, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think so! I can&rsquo;t for the life of me see why you were n&rsquo;t
+      discovered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All I can say is we weren&rsquo;t No doubt it&rsquo;s remarkable. We managed very
+      well,&mdash;that is, I managed,&mdash;he did n&rsquo;t want to manage at all.
+      And then, father and mother are incredibly stupid!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico exhaled a comprehensive moan, feeling glad, on the whole,
+      that she had n&rsquo;t a daughter, while Georgina went on to furnish a few more
+      details. Raymond Benyon, in the summer, had been ordered from Brooklyn to
+      Charlestown, near Boston, where, as Mrs. Portico perhaps knew, there was
+      another navy-yard, in which there was a temporary press of work, requiring
+      more oversight He had remained there several months, during which he had
+      written to her urgently to come to him, and during which, as well, he had
+      received notice that he was to rejoin his ship a little later. Before
+      doing so he came back to Brooklyn for a few weeks to wind up his work
+      there, and then she had seen him&mdash;well, pretty often. That was the
+      best time of all the year that had elapsed since their marriage. It was a
+      wonder at home that nothing had then been guessed; because she had really
+      been reckless, and Benyon had even tried to force on a disclosure. But
+      they <i>were</i> stupid, that was very certain. He had besought her again
+      and again to put an end to their false position, but she did n&rsquo;t want it
+      any more than she had wanted it before. They had rather a bad parting; in
+      fact, for a pair of lovers, it was a very queer parting indeed. He did n&rsquo;t
+      know, now, the thing she had come to tell Mrs. Portico. She had not
+      written to him. He was on a very long cruise. It might be two years before
+      he returned to the United States. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care how long he stays away,&rdquo;
+       Georgina said, very simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t mentioned why you married him. Perhaps you don&rsquo;t remember,&rdquo;
+       Mrs. Portico broke out, with her masculine laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes; I loved him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have got over that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina hesitated a moment. &ldquo;Why, no, Mrs. Portico, of course I haven&rsquo;t;
+      Raymond&rsquo;s a splendid fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why don&rsquo;t you live with him? You don&rsquo;t explain that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would be the use when he&rsquo;s always away? How can one live with a man
+      that spends half his life in the South Seas? If he was n&rsquo;t in the navy it
+      would be different; but to go through everything,&mdash;I mean everything
+      that making our marriage known would bring upon me,&mdash;the scolding and
+      the exposure and the ridicule, the scenes at home,&mdash;to go through it
+      all, just for the idea, and yet be alone here, just as I was before,
+      without my husband after all,&mdash;with none of the good of him,&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      here Georgina looked at her hostess as if with the certitude that such an
+      enumeration of inconveniences would touch her effectually,&mdash;&ldquo;really,
+      Mrs. Portico, I am bound to say I don&rsquo;t think that would be worth while; I
+      haven&rsquo;t the courage for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never thought you were a coward,&rdquo; said Mrs. Portico.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I am not,&mdash;if you will give me time. I am very patient.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never thought that, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marrying changes one,&rdquo; said Georgina, still smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It certainly seems to have had a very peculiar effect upon you. Why don&rsquo;t
+      you make him leave the navy, and arrange your life comfortably, like every
+      one else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would n&rsquo;t for the world interfere with his prospects&mdash;with his
+      promotion. That is sure to come for him, and to come quickly, he has such
+      talents. He is devoted to his profession; it would ruin him to leave it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young woman, you are a wonderful creature!&rdquo; Mrs. Portico
+      exclaimed, looking at her companion as if she had been in a glass case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So poor Raymond says,&rdquo; Georgina answered, smiling more than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, I should have been very sorry to marry a navy man; but if I
+      had married him, I should stick to him, in the face of all the scoldings
+      in the universe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what your parents may have been; I know what mine are,&rdquo;,
+      Georgina replied, with some dignity. &ldquo;When he&rsquo;s a captain, we shall come
+      out of hiding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what shall you do meanwhile? What will you do with your children?
+      Where will you hide them? What will you do with this one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina rested her eyes on her lap for a minute; then, raising them, she
+      met those of Mrs. Portico. &ldquo;Somewhere in Europe,&rdquo; she said, in her sweet
+      tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Georgina Gressie, you &lsquo;re a monster!&rdquo; the elder lady cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what I am about, and you will help me,&rdquo; the girl went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will go and tell your father and mother the whole story,&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+      what I will do!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not in the least afraid of that, not in the least. You will help me,&mdash;I
+      assure you that you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean I will support the child?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina broke into a laugh. &ldquo;I do believe you would, if I were to ask
+      you! But I won&rsquo;t go so far as that; I have something of my own. All I want
+      you to do is to be with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Genoa,&mdash;yes, you have got it all fixed! You say Mr. Benyon is so
+      fond of the place. That&rsquo;s all very well; but how will he like his infant
+      being deposited there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He won&rsquo;t like it at all. You see I tell you the whole truth,&rdquo; said
+      Georgina, gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Much obliged; it&rsquo;s a pity you keep it all for me! It is in his power,
+      then, to make you behave properly. <i>He</i> can publish your marriage if
+      you won&rsquo;t; and if he does you will have to acknowledge your child.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Publish, Mrs. Portico? How little you know my Raymond! He will never
+      break a promise; he will go through fire first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what have you got him to promise?&rsquo; 
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never to insist on a disclosure against my will; never to claim me openly
+      as his wife till I think it is time; never to let any one know what has
+      passed between us if I choose to keep it still a secret&mdash;to keep it
+      for years&mdash;to keep it forever. Never to do anything in the matter
+      himself, but to leave it to me. For this he has given me his solemn word
+      of honor. And I know what that means!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico, on the sofa, fairly bounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You <i>do</i> know what you are about And Mr. Benyon strikes me as more
+      fantastic even than yourself. I never heard of a man taking such an
+      imbecile vow. What good can it do him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good? The good it did him was that, it gratified me. At the time he
+      took it he would have made any promise under the sun. It was a condition I
+      exacted just at the very last, before the marriage took place. There was
+      nothing at that moment he would have refused me; there was nothing I could
+      n&rsquo;t have made him do. He was in love to that degree&mdash;but I don&rsquo;t want
+      to boast,&rdquo; said Georgina, with quiet grandeur. &ldquo;He wanted&mdash;he wanted&mdash;&rdquo;
+       she added; but then she paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He does n&rsquo;t seem to have wanted much!&rdquo; Mrs. Portico cried, in a tone
+      which made Georgina turn to the window, as if it might have reached the
+      street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her hostess noticed the movement and went on: &ldquo;Oh, my dear, if I ever do
+      tell your story, I will tell it so that people will hear it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never will tell it. What I mean is, that Raymond wanted the sanction&mdash;of
+      the affair at the church&mdash;because he saw that I would never do
+      without it. Therefore, for him, the sooner we had it the better, and, to
+      hurry it on, he was ready to take any pledge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have got it pat enough,&rdquo; said Mrs. Portico, in homely phrase. &ldquo;I
+      don&rsquo;t know what you mean by sanctions, or what <i>you</i> wanted of &lsquo;em!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina got up, holding rather higher than before that beautiful head
+      which, in spite of the embarrassments of this interview, had not yet
+      perceptibly abated of its elevation. &ldquo;Would you have liked me to&mdash;to
+      not marry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico rose also, and, flushed with the agitation of unwonted
+      knowledge,&mdash;it was as if she had discovered a skeleton in her
+      favorite cupboard,&mdash;faced her young friend for a moment. Then her
+      conflicting sentiments resolved themselves into an abrupt question,
+      uttered,&mdash;for Mrs. Portico,&mdash;with much solemnity: &ldquo;Georgina
+      Gressie, were you really in love with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The question suddenly dissipated the girl&rsquo;s strange, studied, wilful
+      coldness; she broke out, with a quick flash of passion,&mdash;a passion
+      that, for the moment, was predominantly anger, &ldquo;Why else, in Heaven&rsquo;s
+      name, should I have done what I have done? Why else should I have married
+      him? What under the sun had I to gain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A certain quiver in Georgina&rsquo;s voice, a light in her eye which seemed to
+      Mrs. Portico more spontaneous, more human, as she uttered these words,
+      caused them to affect her hostess rather less painfully than anything she
+      had yet said. She took the girl&rsquo;s hand and emitted indefinite, admonitory
+      sounds. &ldquo;Help me, my dear old friend, help me,&rdquo; Georgina continued, in a
+      low, pleading tone; and in a moment Mrs. Portico saw that the tears were
+      in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You &lsquo;re a queer mixture, my child,&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Go straight home to
+      your own mother, and tell her everything; that is your best help.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are kinder than my mother. You must n&rsquo;t judge her by yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can she do to you? How can she hurt you? We are not living in pagan
+      times,&rdquo; said Mrs. Portico, who was seldom so historical &ldquo;Besides, you have
+      no reason to speak of your mother&mdash;to think of her, even&mdash;so!
+      She would have liked you to marry a man of some property; but she has
+      always been a good mother to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this rebuke Georgina suddenly kindled again; she was, indeed, as Mrs.
+      Portico had said, a queer mixture. Conscious, evidently, that she could
+      not satisfactorily justify her present stiffness, she wheeled round upon a
+      grievance which absolved her from self-defence. &ldquo;Why, then, did he make
+      that promise, if he loved me? No man who really loved me would have made
+      it,&mdash;and no man that was a man, as I understand being a man! He might
+      have seen that I only did it to test him,&mdash;to see if he wanted to
+      take advantage of being left free himself. It is a proof that he does n&rsquo;t
+      love me,&mdash;not as he ought to have done; and in such a case as that a
+      woman is n&rsquo;t bound to make sacrifices!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico was not a person of a nimble intellect; her mind moved
+      vigorously, but heavily; yet she sometimes made happy guesses. She saw
+      that Georgia&rsquo;s emotions were partly real and partly fictitious; that, as
+      regards this last matter, especially, she was trying to &ldquo;get up&rdquo; a
+      resentment, in order to excuse herself. The pretext was absurd, and the
+      good lady was struck with its being heartless on the part of her young
+      visitor to reproach poor Benyon with a concession on which she had
+      insisted, and which could only be a proof of his devotion, inasmuch as he
+      left her free while he bound himself. Altogether, Mrs. Portico was shocked
+      and dismayed at such a want of simplicity in the behavior of a young
+      person whom she had hitherto believed to be as candid as she was elegant,
+      and her appreciation of this discovery expressed itself in the
+      uncompromising remark: &ldquo;You strike me as a very bad girl, my dear; you
+      strike me as a very bad girl!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2_">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      It will doubtless seem to the reader very singular that, in spite of this
+      reflection, which appeared to sum up her judgment of the matter, Mrs.
+      Portico should, in the course of a very few days, have consented to
+      everything that Georgina asked of her. I have thought it well to narrate
+      at length the first conversation that took place between them, but I shall
+      not trace further the details of the girl&rsquo;s hard pleading, or the steps by
+      which&mdash;in the face of a hundred robust and salutary convictions&mdash;the
+      loud, kind, sharp, simple, sceptical, credulous woman took under her
+      protection a damsel whose obstinacy she could not speak of without getting
+      red with anger. It was the simple fact of Georgina&rsquo;s personal condition
+      that moved her; this young lady&rsquo;s greatest eloquence was the seriousness
+      of her predicament She might be bad, and she had a splendid, careless,
+      insolent, fair-faced way of admitting it, which at moments, incoherently,
+      inconsistently, and irresistibly, resolved the harsh confession into tears
+      of weakness; but Mrs. Portico had known her from her rosiest years, and
+      when Georgina declared that she could n&rsquo;t go home, that she wished to be
+      with her and not with her mother, that she could n&rsquo;t expose herself,&mdash;how
+      could she?&mdash;and that she must remain with her and her only till the
+      day they should sail, the poor lady was forced to make that day a reality.
+      She was overmastered, she was cajoled, she was, to a certain extent,
+      fascinated. She had to accept Georgina&rsquo;s rigidity (she had none of her own
+      to oppose to it; she was only violent, she was not continuous), and once
+      she did this, it was plain, after all, that to take her young friend to
+      Europe was to help her, and to leave her alone was not to help her.
+      Georgina literally frightened Mrs. Portico into compliance. She was
+      evidently capable of strange things if thrown upon her own devices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, from one day to another Mrs. Portico announced that she was really at
+      last about to sail for foreign lands (her doctor having told her that if
+      she did n&rsquo;t look out she would get too old to enjoy them), and that she
+      had invited that robust Miss Gressie, who could stand so long on her feet,
+      to accompany her. There was joy in the house of Gressie at this
+      announcement, for though the danger was over, it was a great general
+      advantage to Georgina to go, and the Gressies were always elated at the
+      prospect of an advantage. There was a danger that she might meet Mr.
+      Benyon on the other side of the world; but it didn&rsquo;t seem likely that Mrs.
+      Portico would lend herself to a plot of that kind. If she had taken it
+      into her head to favor their love affair, she would have done it frankly,
+      and Georgina would have been married by this time. Her arrangements were
+      made as quickly as her decision had been&mdash;or rather had appeared&mdash;slow;
+      for this concerned those agile young men down town. Georgina was
+      perpetually at her house; it was understood in Twelfth Street that she was
+      talking over her future travels with her kind friend. Talk there was, of
+      course to a considerable degree; but after it was settled they should
+      start nothing more was said about the motive of the journey. Nothing was
+      said, that is, till the night before they sailed; then a few words passed
+      between them. Georgina had already taken leave of her relations in Twelfth
+      Street, and was to sleep at Mrs. Portico&rsquo;s in order to go down to the ship
+      at an early hour. The two ladies were sitting together in the firelight,
+      silent, with the consciousness of corded luggage, when the elder one
+      suddenly remarked to her companion that she seemed to be taking a great
+      deal upon herself in assuming that Raymond Benyon wouldn&rsquo;t force her hand.
+      <i>He</i> might choose to acknowledge his child, if she didn&rsquo;t; there were
+      promises and promises, and many people would consider they had been let
+      off when circumstances were so altered. She would have to reckon with Mr.
+      Benyon more than she thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what I am about,&rdquo; Georgina answered. &ldquo;There is only one promise,
+      for him. I don&rsquo;t know what you mean by circumstances being altered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything seems to me to be changed,&rdquo; poor Mrs. Portico murmured, rather
+      tragically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he is n&rsquo;t, and he never will! I am sure of him,&mdash;as sure as
+      that I sit here. Do you think I would have looked at him if I had n&rsquo;t
+      known he was a man of his word?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have chosen him well, my dear,&rdquo; said Mrs. Portico, who by this time
+      was reduced to a kind of bewildered acquiescence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I have chosen him well! In such a matter as this he will be
+      perfectly splendid.&rdquo; Then suddenly, &ldquo;Perfectly splendid,&mdash;that&rsquo;s why
+      I cared for him!&rdquo; she repeated, with a flash of incongruous passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This seemed to Mrs. Portico audacious to the point of being sublime; but
+      she had given up trying to understand anything that the girl might say or
+      do. She understood less and less, after they had disembarked in England
+      and begun to travel southward; and she understood least of all when, in
+      the middle of the winter, the event came off with which, in imagination,
+      she had tried to familiarize herself, but which, when it occurred, seemed
+      to her beyond measure strange and dreadful. It took place at Genoa, for
+      Georgina had made up her mind that there would be more privacy in a big
+      town than in a little; and she wrote to America that both Mrs. Portico and
+      she had fallen in love with the place and would spend two or three months
+      there. At that time people in the United States knew much less than to-day
+      about the comparative attractions of foreign cities, and it was not
+      thought surprising that absent New Yorkers should wish to linger in a
+      seaport where they might find apartments, according to Georgina&rsquo;s report,
+      in a palace painted in fresco by Vandyke and Titian. Georgina, in her
+      letters, omitted, it will be seen, no detail that could give color to Mrs.
+      Portico&rsquo;s long stay at Genoa. In such a palace&mdash;where the travellers
+      hired twenty gilded rooms for the most insignificant sum&mdash;a
+      remarkably fine boy came into the world. Nothing could have been more
+      successful and comfortable than this transaction. Mrs. Portico was almost
+      appalled at the facility and felicity of it. She was by this time in a
+      pretty bad way, and&mdash;what had never happened to her before in her
+      life&mdash;she suffered from chronic depression of spirits. She hated to
+      have to lie, and now she was lying all the time. Everything she wrote
+      home, everything that had been said or done in connection with their stay
+      in Genoa, was a lie. The way they remained indoors to avoid meeting chance
+      compatriots was a lie. Compatriots, in Genoa, at that period, were very
+      rare; but nothing could exceed the businesslike completeness of Georgina&rsquo;s
+      precautions. Her nerves, her self-possession, her apparent want of
+      feeling, excited on Mrs. Portico&rsquo;s part a kind of gloomy suspense; a
+      morbid anxiety to see how far her companion would go took possession of
+      the excellent woman, who, a few months before, hated to fix her mind on
+      disagreeable things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina went very far indeed; she did everything in her power to
+      dissimulate the origin of her child. The record of its birth was made
+      under a false name, and he was baptized at the nearest church by a
+      Catholic priest. A magnificent contadina was brought to light by the
+      doctor in a village in the hills, and this big, brown, barbarous creature,
+      who, to do her justice, was full of handsome, familiar smiles and coarse
+      tenderness, was constituted nurse to Raymond Benyon&rsquo;s son. She nursed him
+      for a fortnight under the mother&rsquo;s eye, and she was then sent back to her
+      village with the baby in her arms and sundry gold coin knotted into a
+      corner of her rude pocket-handkerchief. Mr. Gressie had given his daughter
+      a liberal letter of credit on a London banker, and she was able, for the
+      present, to make abundant provision for the little one. She called Mrs.
+      Portico&rsquo;s attention to the fact that she spent none of her money on
+      futilities; she kept it all for her small pensioner in the Genoese hills.
+      Mrs. Portico beheld these strange doings with a stupefaction that
+      occasionally broke into passionate protest; then she relapsed into a
+      brooding sense of having now been an accomplice so far that she must be an
+      accomplice to the end. The two ladies went down to Rome&mdash;Georgina was
+      in wonderful trim&mdash;to finish the season, and here Mrs. Portico became
+      convinced that she intended to abandon her offspring. She had not driven
+      into the country to see the nursling before leaving Genoa,&mdash;she had
+      said that she could n&rsquo;t bear to see it in such a place and among such
+      people. Mrs. Portico, it must be added, had felt the force of this plea,&mdash;felt
+      it as regards a plan of her own, given up after being hotly entertained
+      for a few hours, of devoting a day, by herself, to a visit to the big
+      contadina. It seemed to her that if she should see the child in the sordid
+      hands to which Georgina had consigned it she would become still more of a
+      participant than she was already. This young woman&rsquo;s blooming hardness,
+      after they got to Borne, acted upon her like a kind of Medusa-mask. She
+      had seen a horrible thing, she had been mixed up with it, and her motherly
+      heart had received a mortal chill. It became more clear to her every day
+      that, though Georgina would continue to send the infant money in
+      considerable quantities, she had dispossessed herself of it forever.
+      Together with this induction a fixed idea settled in her mind,&mdash;the
+      project of taking the baby herself, of making him her own, of arranging
+      that matter with the father. The countenance she had given Georgina up to
+      this point was an effective pledge that she would not expose her; but she
+      could adopt the child without exposing her; she could say that he was a
+      lovely baby&mdash;he was lovely, fortunately&mdash;whom she had picked up
+      in a poor village in Italy,&mdash;a village that had been devastated by
+      brigands. She would pretend&mdash;she could pretend; oh, yes, of course,
+      she could pretend! Everything was imposture now, and she could go on to
+      lie as she had begun. The falsity of the whole business sickened her; it
+      made her so yellow that she scarcely knew herself in her glass. None the
+      less, to rescue the child, even if she had to become falser still, would
+      be in some measure an atonement for the treachery to which she had already
+      lent herself. She began to hate Georgina, who had drawn her into such an
+      atrocious current, and if it had not been for two considerations she would
+      have insisted on their separating. One was the deference she owed to Mr.
+      and Mrs. Gressie, who had reposed such a trust in her; the other was that
+      she must keep hold of the mother till she had got possession of the infant
+      Meanwhile, in this forced communion, her aversion to her companion
+      increased; Georgina came to appear to her a creature of brass, of iron;
+      she was exceedingly afraid of her, and it seemed to her now a wonder of
+      wonders that she should ever have trusted her enough to come so far.
+      Georgina showed no consciousness of the change in Mrs. Portico, though
+      there was, indeed, at present, not even a pretence of confidence between
+      the two. Miss Gressie&mdash;that was another lie, to which Mrs. Portico
+      had to lend herself&mdash;was bent on enjoying Europe, and was especially
+      delighted with Rome. She certainly had the courage of her undertaking, and
+      she confessed to Mrs. Portico that she had left Raymond Benyon, and meant
+      to continue to leave him, in ignorance of what had taken place at Genoa.
+      There was a certain confidence, it must be said, in that. He was now in
+      Chinese waters, and she probably should not see him for years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Portico took counsel with herself, and the result of her cogitation
+      was, that she wrote to Mr. Benyon that a charming little boy had been born
+      to him, and that Georgina had put him to nurse with Italian peasants, but
+      that, if he would kindly consent to it, she, Mrs. Portico, would bring him
+      up much better than that. She knew not how to address her letter, and
+      Georgina, even if <i>she</i> should know, which was doubtful, would never
+      tell her; so she sent the missive to the care of the Secretary of the
+      Navy, at Washington, with an earnest request that it might immediately be
+      forwarded. Such was Mrs. Portico&rsquo;s last effort in this strange business of
+      Georgina&rsquo;s. I relate rather a complicated fact in a very few words when I
+      say that the poor lady&rsquo;s anxieties, indignations, repentances, preyed upon
+      her until they fairly broke her down. Various persons whom she knew in
+      Borne notified her that the air of the Seven Hills was plainly unfavorable
+      to her, and she had made up her mind to return to her native land, when
+      she found that, in her depressed condition, malarial fever had laid its
+      hand upon her. She was unable to move, and the matter was settled for her
+      in the course of an illness which, happily, was not prolonged. I have said
+      that she was not obstinate, and the resistance that she made on the
+      present occasion was not worthy even of her spasmodic energy. Brain-fever
+      made its appearance, and she died at the end of three weeks, during which
+      Georgina&rsquo;s attentions to her patient and protectress had been unremitting.
+      There were other Americans in Rome who, after this sad event, extended to
+      the bereaved young lady every comfort and hospitality. She had no lack of
+      opportunities for returning under a proper escort to New York. She
+      selected, you may be sure, the best, and re-entered her father&rsquo;s house,
+      where she took to plain dressing; for she sent all her pocket-money, with
+      the utmost secrecy, to the little boy in the Genoese hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should he come if he doesn&rsquo;t like you? He is under no obligation, and
+      he has his ship to look after. Why should he sit for an hour at a time,
+      and why should he be so pleasant?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think he is very pleasant?&rdquo; Kate Theory asked, turning away her
+      face from her sister. It was important that Mildred should not see how
+      little the expression of that charming countenance corresponded with the
+      inquiry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This precaution was useless, however, for in a moment Mildred said, from
+      the delicately draped couch, where she lay at the open window, &ldquo;Kate
+      Theory, don&rsquo;t be affected!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s for you he comes. I don&rsquo;t see why he should n&rsquo;t; you are far
+      more attractive than I, and you have a great deal more to say. How can he
+      help seeing that you are the cleverest of the clever? You can talk to him
+      of everything: of the dates of the different eruptions, of the statues and
+      bronzes in the Museum, which you have never seen, poor darling! but which
+      you know more about than he does, than any one does. What was it you began
+      on last time? Oh, yes, you poured forth floods about Magna Græcia. And
+      then&mdash;and then&mdash;&rdquo; But with this Kate Theory paused; she felt it
+      would n&rsquo;t do to speak the words that had risen to her lips. That her
+      sister was as beautiful as a saint, and as delicate and refined as an
+      angel,&mdash;she had been on the point of saying something of that sort
+      But Mildred&rsquo;s beauty and delicacy were the fairness of mortal disease, and
+      to praise her for her refinement was simply to intimate that she had the
+      tenuity of a consumptive. So, after she had checked herself, the younger
+      girl&mdash;she was younger only by a year or two&mdash;simply kissed her
+      tenderly, and settled the knot of the lace handkerchief that was tied over
+      her head. Mildred knew what she had been going to say,&mdash;knew why she
+      had stopped. Mildred knew everything, without ever leaving her room, or
+      leaving, at least, that little salon of their own, at the <i>pension</i>,
+      which she had made so pretty by simply lying there, at the window that had
+      the view of the bay and of Vesuvius, and telling Kate how to arrange and
+      rearrange everything. Since it began to be plain that Mildred must spend
+      her small remnant of years altogether in warm climates, the lot of the two
+      sisters had been cast in the ungarnished hostelries of southern Europe.
+      Their little sitting-room was sure to be very ugly, and Mildred was never
+      happy till it was rearranged. Her sister fell to work, as a matter of
+      course, the first day, and changed the place of all the tables, sofas,
+      chairs, till every combination had been tried, and the invalid thought at
+      last that there was a little effect Kate Theory had a taste of her own,
+      and her ideas were not always the same as her sister&rsquo;s; but she did
+      whatever Mildred liked, and if the poor girl had told her to put the
+      doormat on the dining-table, or the clock under the sofa, she would have
+      obeyed without a murmur. Her own ideas, her personal tastes, had been
+      folded up and put away, like garments out of season, in drawers and
+      trunks, with camphor and lavender. They were not, as a general thing, for
+      southern wear, however indispensable to comfort in the climate of New
+      England, where poor Mildred had lost her health. Kate Theory, ever since
+      this event, had lived for her companion, and it was almost an
+      inconvenience for her to think that she was attractive to Captain Benyon.
+      It was as if she had shut up her house and was not in a position to
+      entertain. So long as Mildred should live, her own life was suspended; if
+      there should be any time afterwards, perhaps she would take it up again;
+      but for the present, in answer to any knock at her door, she could only
+      call down from one of her dusty windows that she was not at home. Was it
+      really in these terms she should have to dismiss Captain Benyon? If
+      Mildred said it was for her he came she must perhaps take upon herself
+      such a duty; for, as we have seen, Mildred knew everything, and she must
+      therefore be right She knew about the statues in the Museum, about the
+      excavations at Pompeii, about the antique splendor of Magna Græcia. She
+      always had some instructive volume on the table beside her sofa, and she
+      had strength enough to hold the book for half an hour at a time. That was
+      about the only strength she had now. The Neapolitan winters had been
+      remarkably soft, but after the first month or two she had been obliged to
+      give up her little walks in the garden. It lay beneath her window like a
+      single enormous bouquet; as early as May, that year, the flowers were so
+      dense. None of them, however, had a color so intense as the splendid blue
+      of the bay, which filled up all the rest of the view. It would have looked
+      painted, if you had not been able to see the little movement of the waves.
+      Mildred Theory watched them by the hour, and the breathing crest of the
+      volcano, on the other side of Naples, and the great sea-vision of Capri,
+      on the horizon, changing its tint while her eyes rested there, and
+      wondered what would become of her sister after she was gone. Now that
+      Percival was married,&mdash;he was their only brother, and from one day to
+      the other was to come down to Naples to show them his new wife, as yet a
+      complete stranger, or revealed only in the few letters she had written
+      them during her wedding tour,&mdash;now that Percival was to be quite
+      taken up, poor Kate&rsquo;s situation would be much more grave. Mildred felt
+      that she should be able to judge better, after she should have seen her
+      sister-in-law, how much of a home Kate might expect to find with the pair;
+      but even if Agnes should prove&mdash;well, more satisfactory than her
+      letters, it was a wretched prospect for Kate,&mdash;this living as a mere
+      appendage to happier people. Maiden aunts were very well, but being a
+      maiden aunt was only a last resource, and Kate&rsquo;s first resources had not
+      even been tried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the latter young lady wondered as well,&mdash;wondered in what
+      book Mildred had read that Captain Benyon was in love with her. She
+      admired him, she thought, but he didn&rsquo;t seem a man that would fall in love
+      with one like that She could see that he was on his guard; he would n&rsquo;t
+      throw himself away. He thought too much of himself, or at any rate he took
+      too good care of himself,&mdash;in the manner of a man to whom something
+      had happened which had given him a lesson. Of course what had happened was
+      that his heart was buried somewhere,&mdash;in some woman&rsquo;s grave; he had
+      loved some beautiful girl,&mdash;much more beautiful, Kate was sure, than
+      she, who thought herself small and dark,&mdash;and the maiden had died,
+      and his capacity to love had died with her. He loved her memory,&mdash;that
+      was the only thing he would care for now. He was quiet, gentle, clever,
+      humorous, and very kind in his manner; but if any one save Mildred had
+      said to her that if he came three times a week to Posilippo, it was for
+      anything but to pass his time (he had told them he didn&rsquo;t know another
+      soul in Naples), she would have felt that this was simply the kind of
+      thing&mdash;usually so idiotic&mdash;that people always thought it
+      necessary to say. It was very easy for him to come; he had the big ship&rsquo;s
+      boat, with nothing else to do; and what could be more delightful than to
+      be rowed across the bay, under a bright awning, by four brown sailors with
+      &ldquo;Louisiana&rdquo; in blue letters on their immaculate white shirts, and in gilt
+      letters on their fluttering hat ribbons? The boat came to the steps of the
+      garden of the <i>pension</i>, where the orange-trees hung over and made
+      vague yellow balls shine back out of the water. Kate Theory knew all about
+      that, for Captain Benyon had persuaded her to take a turn in the boat, and
+      if they had only had another lady to go with them, he could have conveyed
+      her to the ship, and shown her all over it It looked beautiful, just a
+      little way off, with the American flag hanging loose in the Italian air.
+      They would have another lady when Agnes should arrive; then Percival would
+      remain with Mildred while they took this excursion. Mildred had stayed
+      alone the day she went in the boat; she had insisted on it, and, of course
+      it was really Mildred who had persuaded her; though now that Kate came to
+      think of it, Captain Benyon had, in his quiet, waiting way&mdash;he turned
+      out to be waiting long after you thought he had let a thing pass&mdash;said
+      a good deal about the pleasure it would give him. Of course, everything
+      would give pleasure to a man who was so bored. He was keeping the
+      &ldquo;Louisiana&rdquo; at Naples, week after week, simply because these were the
+      commodore&rsquo;s orders. There was no work to be done there, and his time was
+      on his hands; but of course the commodore, who had gone to Constantinople
+      with the two other ships, had to be obeyed to the letter, however
+      mysterious his motives. It made no difference that he was a fantastic,
+      grumbling, arbitrary old commodore; only a good while afterwards it
+      occurred to Kate Theory that, for a reserved, correct man, Captain Benyon
+      had given her a considerable proof of confidence, in speaking to her in
+      these terms of his superior officer. If he looked at all hot when he
+      arrived at the <i>pension</i>, she offered him a glass of cold
+      &ldquo;orangeade.&rdquo; Mildred thought this an unpleasant drink,&mdash;she called it
+      messy; but Kate adored it, and Captain Benyon always accepted it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The day I speak of, to change the subject, she called her sister&rsquo;s
+      attention to the extraordinary sharpness of a zigzagging cloud-shadow, on
+      the tinted slope of Vesuvius; but Mildred only remarked in answer that she
+      wished her sister would many the captain. It was in this familiar way that
+      constant meditation led Miss Theory to speak of him; it shows how
+      constantly she thought of him, for, in general, no one was more
+      ceremonious than she, and the failure of her health had not caused her to
+      relax any form that it was possible to keep up. There was a kind of slim
+      erectness, even in the way she lay on her sofa; and she always received
+      the doctor as if he were calling for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had better wait till he asks me,&rdquo; Kate Theory said. &ldquo;Dear Milly, if I
+      were to do some of the things you wish me to do, I should shock you very
+      much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish he would marry you, then. You know there is very little time, if I
+      wish to see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will never see it, Mildred. I don&rsquo;t see why you should take so for
+      granted that I would accept him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will never meet a man who has so few disagreeable qualities. He is
+      probably not enormously rich. I don&rsquo;t know what is the pay of a captain in
+      the navy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a relief to find there is something you don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; Kate Theory
+      broke in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But when I am gone,&rdquo; her sister went on calmly, &ldquo;when I am gone there
+      will be plenty for both of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The younger sister, at this, was silent for a moment; then she exclaimed,
+      &ldquo;Mildred, you may be out of health, but I don&rsquo;t see why you should be
+      dreadful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know that since we have been leading this life we have seen no one we
+      liked better,&rdquo; said Milly. When she spoke of the life they were leading&mdash;there
+      was always a soft resignation of regret and contempt in the allusion&mdash;she
+      meant the southern winters, the foreign climates, the vain experiments,
+      the lonely waitings, the wasted hours, the interminable rains, the bad
+      food, the pottering, humbugging doctors, the damp <i>pensions</i>, the
+      chance encounters, the fitful apparitions, of fellow-travellers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should n&rsquo;t you speak for yourself alone? I am glad <i>you</i> like
+      him, Mildred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t like him, why do you give him orangeade?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this inquiry Kate began to laugh, and her sister continued,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you are glad I like him, my dear. If I did n&rsquo;t like him, and
+      you did, it would n&rsquo;t be satisfactory at all. I can imagine nothing more
+      miserable; I should n&rsquo;t die in any sort of comfort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate Theory usually checked this sort of allusion&mdash;she was always too
+      late&mdash;with a kiss; but on this occasion she added that it was a long
+      time since Mildred had tormented her so much as she had done to-day. &ldquo;You
+      will make me hate him,&rdquo; she added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that proves you don&rsquo;t already,&rdquo; Milly rejoined; and it happened
+      that almost at this moment they saw, in the golden afternoon, Captain
+      Benyon&rsquo;s boat approaching the steps at the end of the garden. He came that
+      day, and he came two days later, and he came yet once again after an
+      interval equally brief, before Percival Theory arrived, with Mrs.
+      Percival, from Borne. He seemed anxious to crowd into these few days, as
+      he would have said, a good deal of intercourse with the two remarkably
+      nice girls&mdash;or nice women, he hardly knew which to call them&mdash;whom
+      in the course of a long, idle, rather tedious detention at Naples, he had
+      discovered in the lovely suburb of Posilippo. It was the American consul
+      who had put him into relation with them; the sisters had had to sign, in
+      the consul&rsquo;s presence, some law-papers, transmitted to them by the man of
+      business who looked after their little property in America, and the kindly
+      functionary, taking advantage of the pretext (Captain Benyon happened to
+      come into the consulate as he was starting, indulgently, to wait upon the
+      ladies) to bring together &ldquo;two parties&rdquo; who, as he said, ought to
+      appreciate each other, proposed to his fellow-officer in the service of
+      the United States that he should go with him as witness of the little
+      ceremony. He might, of course, take his clerk, but the captain would do
+      much better; and he represented to Benyon that the Miss Theorys (singular
+      name, wa&rsquo; n&rsquo;t it?) suffered&mdash;he was sure&mdash;from a lack of
+      society; also that one of them was very sick, that they were real pleasant
+      and extraordinarily refined, and that the sight of a compatriot, literally
+      draped, as it were, in the national banner, would cheer them up more than
+      most anything, and give them a sense of protection. They had talked to the
+      consul about Benyon&rsquo;s ship, which they could see from their windows, in
+      the distance, at its anchorage. They were the only American ladies then at
+      Naples,&mdash;the only residents, at least,&mdash;and the captain would
+      n&rsquo;t be doing the polite thing unless he went to pay them his respects.
+      Benyon felt afresh how little it was in his line to call upon strange
+      women; he was not in the habit of hunting up female acquaintance, or of
+      looking out for the soft emotions which the sex only can inspire. He had
+      his reasons for this abstention, and he seldom relaxed it; but the consul
+      appealed to him on rather strong grounds; and he suffered himself to be
+      persuaded. He was far from regretting, during the first weeks at least, an
+      act which was distinctly inconsistent with his great rule,&mdash;that of
+      never exposing himself to the chance of seriously caring for an unmarried
+      woman. He had been obliged to make this rule, and had adhered to it with
+      some success. He was fond of women, but he was forced to restrict himself
+      to superficial sentiments. There was no use tumbling into situations from
+      which the only possible issue was a retreat The step he had taken with
+      regard to poor Miss Theory and her delightful little sister was an
+      exception on which at first he could only congratulate himself. That had
+      been a happy idea of the ruminating old consul; it made Captain Benyon
+      forgive him his hat, his boots, his shirtfront,&mdash;a costume which
+      might be considered representative, and the effect of which was to make
+      the observer turn with rapture to a half-naked lazzarone. On either side
+      the acquaintance had helped the time to pass, and the hours he spent at
+      the little <i>pension</i> at Posilippo left a sweet&mdash;and by no means
+      innutritive&mdash;taste behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the weeks went by his exception had grown to look a good deal like a
+      rule; but he was able to remind himself that the path of retreat was
+      always open to him. Moreover, if he should fall in love with the younger
+      girl there would be no great harm, for Kate Theory was in love only with
+      her sister, and it would matter very little to her whether he advanced or
+      retreated. She was very attractive, or rather very attracting. Small,
+      pale, attentive without rigidity, full of pretty curves and quick
+      movements, she looked as if the habit of watching and serving had taken
+      complete possession of her, and was literally a little sister of charity.
+      Her thick black hair was pushed behind her ears, as if to help her to
+      listen, and her clear brown eyes had the smile of a person too full of
+      tact to cany a dull face to a sickbed. She spoke in an encouraging voice,
+      and had soothing and unselfish habits. She was very pretty,&mdash;producing
+      a cheerful effect of contrasted black and white, and dressed herself
+      daintily, so that Mildred might have something agreeable to look at Benyon
+      very soon perceived that there was a fund of good service in her. Her
+      sister had it all now; but poor Miss Theory was fading fast, and then what
+      would become of this precious little force? The answer to such a question
+      that seemed most to the point was that it was none of his business. He was
+      not sick,&mdash;at least not physically,&mdash;and he was not looking out
+      for a nurse. Such a companion might be a luxury, but was not, as yet, a
+      necessity: The welcome of the two ladies, at first, had been simple, and
+      he scarcely knew what to call it but sweet; a bright, gentle friendliness
+      remained the tone of their greeting. They evidently liked him to come,&mdash;they
+      liked to see his big transatlantic ship hover about those gleaming coasts
+      of exile. The fact of Miss Mildred being always stretched on her couch&mdash;in
+      his successive visits to foreign waters Benyon had not unlearned (as why
+      should he?) the pleasant American habit of using the lady&rsquo;s personal name&mdash;made
+      their intimacy seem greater, their differences less; it was as if his
+      hostesses had taken him into their confidence and he had been&mdash;as the
+      consul would have said&mdash;of the same party. Knocking about the salt
+      parts of the globe, with a few feet square on a rolling frigate for his
+      only home, the pretty, flower-decked sitting-room of the quiet American
+      sisters became, more than anything he had hitherto known, his interior. He
+      had dreamed once of having an interior, but the dream had vanished in
+      lurid smoke, and no such vision had come to him again. He had a feeling
+      that the end of this was drawing nigh; he was sure that the advent of the
+      strange brother, whose wife was certain to be disagreeable, would make a
+      difference. That is why, as I have said, he came as often as possible the
+      last week, after he had learned the day on which Percival Theory would
+      arrive. The limits of the exception had been reached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had been new to the young ladies at Posilippo, and there was no reason
+      why they should say to each other that he was a very different man from
+      the ingenuous youth who, ten years before, used to wander with Georgina
+      Gressie down vistas of plank fences brushed over with the advertisements
+      of quack medicines. It was natural he should be, and we, who know him,
+      would have found that he had traversed the whole scale of alteration.
+      There was nothing ingenuous in him now; he had the look of experience, of
+      having been seasoned and hardened by the years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His face, his complexion, were the same; still smooth-shaven and slim, he
+      always passed, at first, for a man scarcely out of his twenties. But his
+      expression was old, and his talk was older still,&mdash;the talk of one
+      who had seen much of the world (as indeed he had, to-day), and judged most
+      things for himself, with a humorous scepticism which, whatever concessions
+      it might make, superficially, for the sake of not offending (for instance)
+      two remarkably nice American women, of the kind that had kept most of
+      their illusions, left you with the conviction that the next minute it
+      would go quickly back to its own standpoint There was a curious
+      contradiction in him; he struck you as serious, and yet he could not be
+      said to take things seriously. This was what made Kate Theory feel so sure
+      that he had lost the object of his affections; and she said to herself
+      that it must have been under circumstances of peculiar sadness, for that
+      was, after all, a frequent accident, and was not usually thought, in
+      itself, a sufficient stroke to make a man a cynic. This reflection, it may
+      be added, was, on the young lady&rsquo;s part, just the least bit acrimonious.
+      Captain Benyon was not a cynic in any sense in which he might have shocked
+      an innocent mind; he kept his cynicism to himself, and was a very clever,
+      courteous, attentive gentleman. If he was melancholy, you knew it chiefly
+      by his jokes, for they were usually at his own expense; and if he was
+      indifferent, it was all the more to his credit that he should have exerted
+      himself to entertain his countrywomen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The last time he called before the arrival of the expected brother, he
+      found Miss Theory alone, and sitting up, for a wonder, at her window. Kate
+      had driven into Naples to give orders at the hotel for the reception of
+      the travellers, who required accommodation more spacious than the villa at
+      Posilippo (where the two sisters had the best rooms) could offer them; and
+      the sick girl had taken advantage of her absence and of the pretext
+      afforded by a day of delicious warmth, to transfer herself, for the first
+      time in six months, to an arm-chair. She was practising, as she said, for
+      the long carriage-journey to the north, where, in a quiet corner they knew
+      of, on the Lago Maggiore, her summer was to be spent. Eaymond Benyon
+      remarked to her that she had evidently turned the corner and was going to
+      get well, and this gave her a chance to say various things that were on
+      her mind. She had many things on her mind, poor Mildred Theory, so caged
+      and restless, and yet so resigned and patient as she was; with a clear,
+      quick spirit, in the most perfect health, ever reaching forward, to the
+      end of its tense little chain, from her wasted and suffering body; and, in
+      the course of the perfect summer afternoon, as she sat there, exhilarated
+      by the success of her effort to get up, and by her comfortable
+      opportunity, she took her friendly visitor into the confidence of most of
+      her anxieties. She told him, very promptly and positively, that she was
+      not going to get well at all, that she had probably not more than ten
+      months yet to live, and that he would oblige her very much by not forcing
+      her to waste any more breath in contradicting him on that point. Of course
+      she could n&rsquo;t talk much; therefore, she wished to say to him only things
+      that he would not hear from any one else. Such, for instance, was her
+      present secret&mdash;Katie&rsquo;s and hers&mdash;the secret of their fearing so
+      much that they should n&rsquo;t like Percival&rsquo;s wife, who was not from Boston,
+      but from New York. Naturally, that by itself would be nothing, but from
+      what they had heard of her set&mdash;this subject had been explored by
+      their correspondents&mdash;they were rather nervous, nervous to the point
+      of not being in the least reassured by the fact that the young lady would
+      bring Percival a fortune. The fortune was a matter of course, for that was
+      just what they had heard about Agnes&rsquo;s circle&mdash;that the stamp of
+      money was on all their thoughts and doings. They were very rich and very
+      new and very splashing, and evidently had very little in common with the
+      two Miss Theorys, who, moreover, if the truth must be told (and this was a
+      great secret), did not care much for the letters their sister-in-law had
+      hitherto addressed them. She had been at a French boarding-school in New
+      York, and yet (and this was the greatest secret of all) she wrote to them
+      that she had performed a part of the journey through France in <i>diligance!</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, they would see the next day; Miss Mildred was sure she should
+      know in a moment whether Agnes would like them. She could never have told
+      him all this if her sister had been there, and Captain Benyon must promise
+      never to reveal to Kate how she had chattered. Kate thought always that
+      they must hide everything, and that even if Agnes should be a dreadful
+      disappointment they must never let any one guess it And yet Kate was just
+      the one who would suffer, in the coming years, after she herself had gone.
+      Their brother had been everything to them, but now it would all be
+      different Of course it was not to be expected that he should have remained
+      a bachelor for their sake; she only wished he had waited till she was dead
+      and Kate was married One of these events, it was true, was much less sure
+      than the other; Kate might never marry,&mdash;much as she wished she
+      would! She was quite morbidly unselfish, and did n&rsquo;t think she had a right
+      to have anything of her own&mdash;not even a husband. Miss Mildred talked
+      a good while about Kate, and it never occurred to her that she might bore
+      Captain Benyon. She did n&rsquo;t, in point of fact; he had none of the trouble
+      of wondering why this poor, sick, worried lady was trying to push her
+      sister down his throat Their peculiar situation made everything natural,
+      and the tone she took with him now seemed only what their pleasant
+      relation for the last three months led up to. Moreover, he had an
+      excellent reason for not being bored: the fact, namely, that after all,
+      with regard to her sister, Miss Mildred appeared to him to keep back more
+      than she uttered. She didn&rsquo;t tell him the great thing,&mdash;she had
+      nothing to say as to what that charming girl thought of Eaymond Benyon.
+      The effect of their interview, indeed, was to make him shrink from
+      knowing, and he felt that the right thing for him would be to get back
+      into his boat, which was waiting at the garden steps, before Kate Theory
+      should return from Naples. It came over him, as he sat there, that he was
+      far too interested in knowing what this young lady thought of him. She
+      might think what she pleased; it could make no difference to him. The best
+      opinion in the world&mdash;if it looked out at him from her tender eyes&mdash;would
+      not make him a whit more free or more happy. Women of that sort were not
+      for him, women whom one could not see familiarly without falling in love
+      with them, and whom it was no use to fall in love with unless one was
+      ready to marry them. The light of the summer afternoon, and of Miss
+      Mildred&rsquo;s pure spirit, seemed suddenly to flood the whole subject. He saw
+      that he was in danger, and he had long since made up his mind that from
+      this particular peril it was not only necessary but honorable to flee. He
+      took leave of his hostess before her sister reappeared, and had the
+      courage even to say to her that he would not come back often after that;
+      they would be so much occupied by their brother and his wife! As he moved
+      across the glassy bay, to the rhythm of the oars, he wished either that
+      the sisters would leave Naples or that his confounded commodore would send
+      for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Kate returned from her errand, ten minutes later, Milly told her of
+      the captain&rsquo;s visit, and added that she had never seen anything so sudden
+      as the way he left her. &ldquo;He would n&rsquo;t wait for you, my dear, and he said
+      he thought it more than likely that he should never see us again. It is as
+      if he thought you were going to die too!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is his ship called away?&rdquo; Kate Theory asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did n&rsquo;t tell me so; he said we should be so busy with Percival and
+      Agnes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has got tired of us,&mdash;that&rsquo;s all. There&rsquo;s nothing wonderful in
+      that; I knew he would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mildred said nothing for a moment; she was watching her sister, who was
+      very attentively arranging some flowers. &ldquo;Yes, of course, we are very
+      dull, and he is like everybody else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you thought he was so wonderful,&rdquo; said Kate, &ldquo;and so fond of
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So he is; I am surer of that than ever. That&rsquo;s why he went away so
+      abruptly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate looked at her sister now. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I, darling. But you will, one of these days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How if he never comes back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he will&mdash;after a while&mdash;when I am gone. Then he will
+      explain; that, at least, is clear to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My poor precious, as if I cared!&rdquo; Kate Theory exclaimed, smiling as she
+      distributed her flowers. She carried them to the window, to place them
+      near her sister, and here she paused a moment, her eye caught by an
+      object, far out in the bay, with which she was not unfamiliar. Mildred
+      noticed its momentary look, and followed its direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the captain&rsquo;s gig going back to the ship,&rdquo; Milly said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s so
+      still one can almost hear the oars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate Theory turned away, with a sudden, strange violence, a movement and
+      exclamation which, the very next minute, as she became conscious of what
+      she had said,&mdash;and, still more, of what she felt&mdash;smote her own
+      heart (as it flushed her face) with surprise, and with the force of a
+      revelation: &ldquo;I wish it would sink him to the bottom of the sea!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her sister stared, then caught her by the dress, as she passed from her,
+      drawing her back with a weak hand. &ldquo;Oh, my dearest, my poorest!&rdquo; And she
+      pulled Kate down and down toward her, so that the girl had nothing for it
+      but to sink on her knees and bury her face in Mildred&rsquo;s lap. If that
+      ingenious invalid did not know everything now, she knew a great deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART3" id="link2H_PART3__">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PART III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Percival proved very pretty. It is more gracious to begin with this
+      declaration, instead of saying that, in the first place, she proved very
+      silly. It took a long day to arrive at the end of her silliness, and the
+      two ladies at Posilippo, even after a week had passed, suspected that they
+      had only skirted its edges. Kate Theory had not spent half an hour in her
+      company before she gave a little private sigh of relief; she felt that a
+      situation which had promised to be embarrassing was now quite clear, was
+      even of a primitive simplicity. She would spend with her sister-in-law, in
+      the coming time, one week in the year; that was all that was mortally
+      possible. It was a blessing that one could see exactly what she was, for
+      in that way the question settled itself. It would have been much more
+      tiresome if Agnes had been a little less obvious; then she would have had
+      to hesitate and consider and weigh one thing against another. She was
+      pretty and silly, as distinctly as an orange is yellow and round; and Kate
+      Theory would as soon have thought of looking to her to give interest to
+      the future as she would have thought of looking to an orange to impart
+      solidity to the prospect of dinner. Mrs. Percival travelled in the hope of
+      meeting her American acquaintance, or of making acquaintance with such
+      Americans as she did meet, and for the purpose of buying mementos for her
+      relations. She was perpetually adding to her store of articles in
+      tortoise-shell, in mother-of-pearl, in olive-wood, in ivory, in filigree,
+      in tartan lacquer, in mosaic; and she had a collection of Roman scarfs and
+      Venetian beads, which she looked over exhaustively every night before she
+      went to bed. Her conversation bore mainly upon the manner in which she
+      intended to dispose of these accumulations. She was constantly changing
+      about, among each other, the persons to whom they were respectively to be
+      offered. At Borne one of the first things she said to her husband after
+      entering the Coliseum had been: &ldquo;I guess I will give the ivory work-box to
+      Bessie and the Roman pearls to Aunt Harriet!&rdquo; She was always hanging over
+      the travellers&rsquo; book at the hotel; she had it brought up to her, with a
+      cup of chocolate, as soon as she arrived. She searched its pages for the
+      magical name of New York, and she indulged in infinite conjecture as to
+      who the people were&mdash;the name was sometimes only a partial cue&mdash;who
+      had inscribed it there. What she most missed in Europe, and what she most
+      enjoyed, were the New Yorkers; when she met them she talked about the
+      people in their native city who had &ldquo;moved&rdquo; and the streets they had moved
+      to. &ldquo;Oh, yes, the Drapers are going up town, to Twenty-fourth Street, and
+      the Vanderdeckens are going to be in Twenty-third Street, right back of
+      them. My uncle, Henry Piatt, thinks of building round there.&rdquo; Mrs.
+      Percival Theory was capable of repeating statements like these thirty
+      times over,&mdash;of lingering on them for hours. She talked largely of
+      herself, of her uncles and aunts, of her clothes&mdash;past, present, and
+      future. These articles, in especial, filled her horizon; she considered
+      them with a complacency which might have led you to suppose that she had
+      invented the custom of draping the human form. Her main point of contact
+      with Naples was the purchase of coral; and all the while she was there the
+      word &ldquo;set&rdquo;&mdash;she used it as if every one would understand&mdash;fell
+      with its little, flat, common sound upon the ears of her sisters-in-law,
+      who had no sets of anything. She cared little for pictures and mountains;
+      Alps and Apennines were not productive of New Yorkers, and it was
+      difficult to take an interest in Madonnas who flourished at periods when,
+      apparently, there were no fashions, or, at any rate, no trimmings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I speak here not only of the impression she made upon her husband&rsquo;s
+      anxious sisters, but of the judgment passed on her (he went so far as
+      that, though it was not obvious how it mattered to him) by Raymond Benyon.
+      And this brings me at a jump (I confess it&rsquo;s a very small one) to the fact
+      that he did, after all, go back to Posilippo. He stayed away for nine
+      days, and at the end of this time Percival Theory called upon him, to
+      thank him for the civility he had shown his kinswomen. He went to this
+      gentleman&rsquo;s hotel, to return his visit, and there he found Miss Kate, in
+      her brother&rsquo;s sitting-room. She had come in by appointment from the villa,
+      and was going with the others to seek the royal palace, which she had not
+      yet had an opportunity to inspect It was proposed (not by Kate), and
+      presently arranged, that Captain Benyon should go with them, and he
+      accordingly walked over marble floors for half an hour, exchanging
+      conscious commonplaces with the woman he loved. For this truth had rounded
+      itself during those nine days of absence; he discovered that there was
+      nothing particularly sweet in his life when once Kate Theory had been
+      excluded from it He had stayed away to keep himself from falling in love
+      with her; but this expedient was in itself illuminating, for he perceived
+      that, according to the vulgar adage, he was locking the stable door after
+      the horse had been stolen. As he paced the deck of his ship and looked
+      toward Posilippo, his tenderness crystallized; the thick, smoky flame of a
+      sentiment that knew itself forbidden and was angry at the knowledge, now
+      danced upon the fuel of his good resolutions. The latter, it must be said,
+      resisted, declined to be consumed. He determined that he would see Kate
+      Theory again, for a time, just sufficient to bid her good-by, and to add a
+      little explanation. He thought of his explanation very lovingly, but it
+      may not strike the reader as a happy inspiration. To part from her dryly,
+      abruptly, without an allusion to what he might have said if everything had
+      been different,&mdash;that would be wisdom, of course, that would be virtue,
+      that would be the line of a practical man, of a man who kept himself well
+      in hand. But it would be virtue terribly unrewarded,&mdash;it would be
+      virtue too austere for a person who sometimes flattered himself that he
+      had taught himself stoicism. The minor luxury tempted him irresistibly,
+      since the larger&mdash;that of happy love&mdash;was denied him; the luxury
+      of letting the girl know that it would not be an accident&mdash;oh, not at
+      all&mdash;that they should never meet again. She might easily think it
+      was, and thinking it was would doubtless do her no harm. But this would
+      n&rsquo;t give him his pleasure,&mdash;the Platonic satisfaction of expressing
+      to her at the same time his belief that they might have made each other
+      happy, and the necessity of his renunciation. That, probably, wouldn&rsquo;t
+      hurt her either, for she had given him no proof whatever that she cared
+      for him. The nearest approach to it was the way she walked beside him now,
+      sweet and silent, without the least reference to his not having been back
+      to the villa. The place was cool and dusky, the blinds were drawn, to keep
+      out the light and noise, and the little party wandered through the high
+      saloons, where precious marbles and the gleam of gilding and satin made
+      reflections in the rich dimness. Here and there the cicerone, in slippers,
+      with Neapolitan familiarity, threw open a shutter to show off a picture on
+      a tapestry. He strolled in front with Percival Theory and his wife, while
+      this lady, drooping silently from her husband&rsquo;s arm as they passed, felt
+      the stuff of the curtains and the sofas. When he caught her in these
+      experiments, the cicerone, in expressive deprecation, clasped his hands
+      and lifted his eyebrows; whereupon Mrs. Theory exclaimed to her husband,
+      &ldquo;Oh, bother his old king!&rdquo; It was not striking to Captain Benyon why
+      Percival Theory had married the niece of Mr. Henry Piatt. He was less
+      interesting than his sisters,&mdash;a smooth, cool, correct young man, who
+      frequently took out a pencil and did a little arithmetic on the back of a
+      letter. He sometimes, in spite of his correctness, chewed a toothpick, and
+      he missed the American papers, which he used to ask for in the most
+      unlikely places. He was a Bostonian converted to New York; a very special
+      type.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it settled when you leave Naples?&rdquo; Benyon asked of Kate Theory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think so; on the twenty-fourth. My brother has been very kind; he has
+      lent us his carriage, which is a large one, so that Mildred can lie down.
+      He and Agnes will take another; but, of course, we shall travel together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to Heaven I were going with you?&rdquo; Captain Benyon said. He had
+      given her the opportunity to respond, but she did not take it; she merely
+      remarked, with a vague laugh, that of course he couldn&rsquo;t take his ship
+      over the Apennines. &ldquo;Yes, there is always my ship,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;I am
+      afraid that in future it will carry me far away from you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were alone in one of the royal apartments; their companions had
+      passed, in advance of them, into the adjoining room. Benyon and his
+      fellow-visitor had paused beneath one of the immense chandeliers of glass,
+      which in the clear, colored gloom (through it one felt the strong outer
+      light of Italy beating in) suspended its twinkling drops from the
+      decorated vault. They looked round them confusedly, made shy for the
+      moment by Benyon&rsquo;s having struck a note more serious than any that had
+      hitherto souuded between them, looked at the sparse furniture, draped in
+      white overalls, at the scagiiola floor, in which the great cluster of
+      crystal pendants seemed to shine again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are master of your ship. Can&rsquo;t you sail it as you like?&rdquo; Kate Theory
+      asked, with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not master of anything. There is not a man in the world less free. I
+      am a slave. I am a victim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with kind eyes; something in his voice suddenly made her
+      put away all thought of the defensive airs that a girl, in certain
+      situations, is expected to assume. She perceived that he wanted to make
+      her understand something, and now her only wish was to help him to say it.
+      &ldquo;You are not happy,&rdquo; she murmured, simply, her voice dying away in a kind
+      of wonderment at this reality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentle touch of the words&mdash;it was as if her hand had stroked his
+      cheek&mdash;seemed to him the sweetest thing he had ever known. &ldquo;No, I am
+      not happy, because I am not free. If I were&mdash;if I were, I would give
+      up my ship. I would give up everything, to follow you. I can&rsquo;t explain;
+      that is part of the hardness of it. I only want you to know it,&mdash;that
+      if certain things were different, if everything was different, I might
+      tell you that I believe I should have a right to speak to you. Perhaps
+      some day it will change; but probably then it will be too late. Meanwhile,
+      I have no right of any kind. I don&rsquo;t want to trouble you, and I don&rsquo;t ask
+      of you&mdash;anything! It is only to have spoken just once. I don&rsquo;t make
+      you understand, of course. I am afraid I seem to you rather a brute,&mdash;perhaps
+      even a humbug. Don&rsquo;t think of it now,&mdash;don&rsquo;t try to understand. But
+      some day, in the future, remember what I have said to you, and how we
+      stood here, in this strange old place, alone! Perhaps it will give you a
+      little pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Kate Theory began by listening to him with visible eagerness; but in a
+      moment she turned away her eyes. &ldquo;I am very sorry for you,&rdquo; she said,
+      gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you do understand enough?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall think of what you have said, in the future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon&rsquo;s lips formed the beginning of a word of tenderness, which he
+      instantly suppressed; and in a different tone, with a bitter smile and a
+      sad shake of the head, raising his arms a moment and letting them fall, he
+      said: &ldquo;It won&rsquo;t hurt any one, your remembering this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know whom you mean.&rdquo; And the girl, abruptly, began to walk to the
+      end of the room. He made no attempt to tell her whom he meant, and they
+      proceeded together in silence till they overtook their companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were several pictures in the neighboring room, and Percival Theory
+      and his wife had stopped to look at one of them, of which the cicerone
+      announced the title and the authorship as Benyon came up. It was a modern
+      portrait of a Bourbon princess, a woman young, fair, handsome, covered
+      with jewels. Mrs. Percival appeared to be more struck with it than with
+      anything the palace had yet offered to her sight, while her sister-in-law
+      walked to the window, which the custodian had opened, to look out into the
+      garden. Benyon noticed this; he was conscious that he had given the girl
+      something to reflect upon, and his ears burned a little as he stood beside
+      Mrs. Percival and looked up, mechanically, at the royal lady. He already
+      repented a little of what he had said, for, after all, what was the use?
+      And he hoped the others wouldn&rsquo;t observe that he had been making love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gracious, Percival! Do you see who she looks like?&rdquo; Mrs. Theory said to
+      her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She looks like a woman who has run up a big bill at Tiffany&rsquo;s,&rdquo; this
+      gentleman answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She looks like my sister-in-law; the eyes, the mouth, the way the hair&rsquo;s
+      done,&mdash;the whole thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which do you mean? You have got about a dozen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Georgina, of course,&mdash;Georgina Roy. She&rsquo;s awfully like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you call <i>her</i> your sister-in-law?&rdquo; Percival Theory asked. &ldquo;You
+      must want very much to claim her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she&rsquo;s handsome enough. You have got to invent some new name, then.
+      Captain Benyon, what do you call your brother-in-law&rsquo;s second wife?&rdquo; Mrs.
+      Percival continued, turning to her neighbor, who still stood staring at
+      the portrait. At first he had looked without seeing; then sight, and
+      hearing as well, became quick. They were suddenly peopled with thrilling
+      recognitions. The Bourbon princess&mdash;the eyes, the mouth, the way the
+      hair was done; these things took on an identity, and the gaze of the
+      painted face seemed to fasten itself to his own. But who in the world was
+      Georgina Roy, and what was this talk about sisters-in-law? He turned to
+      the little lady at his side a countenance unexpectedly puzzled by the
+      problem she had airily presented to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your brother-in-law&rsquo;s second wife? That&rsquo;s rather complicated.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, of course, he need n&rsquo;t have married again?&rdquo; said Mrs. Percival,
+      with a small sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whom did he marry?&rdquo; asked Benyon, staring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Percival Theory had turned away. &ldquo;Oh, if you are going into her
+      relationships!&rdquo; he murmured, and joined his sister at the brilliant
+      window, through which, from the distance, the many-voiced uproar of Naples
+      came in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He married first my sister Dora, and she died five years ago. Then he
+      married <i>her</i>,&rdquo; and Mrs. Percival nodded at the princess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon&rsquo;s eyes went back to the portrait; he could see what she meant&mdash;it
+      stared out at him. &ldquo;Her? Georgina?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Georgina Gressie. Gracious, do you know her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was very distinct&mdash;that answer of Mrs. Percival&rsquo;s, and the
+      question that followed it as well. But he had the resource of the picture;
+      he could look at it, seem to take it very seriously, though it danced up
+      and down before him. He felt that he was turning red, then he felt that he
+      was turning pale. &ldquo;The brazen impudence!&rdquo; That was the way he could speak
+      to himself now of the woman he had once loved, and whom he afterwards
+      hated, till this had died out, too. Then the wonder of it was lost in the
+      quickly growing sense that it would make a difference for him,&mdash;a
+      great difference. Exactly what, he didn&rsquo;t see yet; only a difference that
+      swelled and swelled as he thought of it, and caught up, in its expansion,
+      the girl who stood behind him so quietly, looking into the Italian garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The custodian drew Mrs. Percival away to show her another princess, before
+      Benyon answered her last inquiry. This gave him time to recover from his
+      first impulse, which had been to answer it with a negative; he saw in a
+      moment that an admission of his acquaintance with Mrs. Roy (Mrs. Roy!&mdash;it
+      was prodigious!) was necessarily helping him to learn more. Besides, it
+      needn&rsquo;t be compromising. Very likely Mrs. Percival would hear one day that
+      he had once wanted to marry her. So, when he joined his companions a
+      minute later he remarked that he had known Miss Gressie years before, and
+      had even admired her considerably, but had lost sight of her entirely in
+      later days. She had been a great beauty, and it was a wonder that she had
+      not married earlier. Five years ago, was it? No, it was only two. He had
+      been going to say that in so long a time it would have been singular he
+      should not have heard of it. He had been away from New York for ages; but
+      one always heard of marriages and deaths. This was a proof, though two
+      years was rather long. He led Mrs. Percival insidiously into a further
+      room, in advance of the others, to whom the cicerone returned. She was
+      delighted to talk about her &ldquo;connections,&rdquo; and she supplied him with every
+      detail He could trust himself now; his self-possession was complete, or,
+      so far as it was wanting, the fault was that of a sudden gayety which he
+      could not, on the spot, have accounted for. Of course it was not very
+      flattering to them&mdash;Mrs. Percivals own people&mdash;that poor Dora&rsquo;s
+      husband should have consoled himself; but men always did it (talk of
+      widows!) and he had chosen a girl who was&mdash;well, very fine-looking,
+      and the sort of successor to Dora that they needn&rsquo;t be ashamed of. She had
+      been awfully admired, and no one had understood why she had waited so long
+      to marry. She had had some affair as a girl,&mdash;an engagement to an
+      officer in the army,&mdash;and the man had jilted her, or they had
+      quarrelled, or something or other. She was almost an old maid,&mdash;well,
+      she was thirty, or very nearly,&mdash;but she had done something good now.
+      She was handsomer than ever, and tremendously stylish. William Roy had one
+      of the biggest incomes in the city, and he was quite affectionate. He had
+      been intensely fond of Dora&mdash;he often spoke of her still, at least to
+      her own relations; and her portrait, the last time Mrs. Percival was in
+      his house (it was at a party, after his marriage to Miss Gressie), was
+      still in the front parlor.. Perhaps by this time he had had it moved to
+      the back; but she was sure he would keep it somewhere, anyway. Poor Dora
+      had had no children; but Georgina was making that all right,&mdash;she had
+      a beautiful boy. Mrs. Percival had what she would have called quite a
+      pleasant chat with Captain Benyon about Mrs. Roy. Perhaps <i>he</i> was
+      the officer&mdash;she never thought of that? He was sure he had never
+      jilted her? And he had never quarrelled with a lady? Well, he must be
+      different from most men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He certainly had the air of being so, before he parted that afternoon with
+      Kate Theory. This young lady, at least, was free to think him wanting in
+      that consistency which is supposed to be a distinctively masculine virtue.
+      An hour before, he had taken an eternal farewell of her, and now he was
+      alluding to future meetings, to future visits, proposing that, with her
+      sister-in-law, she should appoint an early day for coming to see the
+      &ldquo;Louisiana.&rdquo; She had supposed she understood him, but it would appear now
+      that she had not understood him at all. His manner had changed, too. More
+      and more off his guard, Raymond Benyon was not aware how much more hopeful
+      an expression it gave him, his irresistible sense that somehow or other
+      this extraordinary proceeding of his wife&rsquo;s would set him free. Kate
+      Theory felt rather weary and mystified,&mdash;all the more for knowing
+      that henceforth Captain Benyon&rsquo;s variations would be the most important
+      thing in life for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This officer, on his ship in the bay, lingered very late on deck that
+      night,&mdash;lingered there, indeed, under the warm southern sky, in which
+      the stars glittered with a hot, red light, until the early dawn began to
+      show. He smoked cigar after cigar, he walked up and down by the hour, he
+      was agitated by a thousand reflections, he repeated to himself that it
+      made a difference,&mdash;an immense difference; but the pink light had
+      deepened in the east before he had discovered in what the diversity
+      consisted. By that time he saw it clearly,&mdash;it consisted in
+      Georgina&rsquo;s being in his power now, in place of his being in hers. He
+      laughed as he sat there alone in the darkness at the thought of what she
+      had done. It had occurred to him more than once that she would do it,&mdash;he
+      believed her capable of anything; but the accomplished fact had a
+      freshness of comicality. He thought of Mr. William Roy, of his big income,
+      of his being &ldquo;quite affectionate,&rdquo; of his blooming son and heir, of his
+      having found such a worthy successor to poor Mrs. Dora. He wondered
+      whether Georgina had happened to mention to him that she had a husband
+      living, but was strongly of the belief that she had not. Why should she,
+      after all? She had neglected to mention it to so many others. He had
+      thought he knew her, in so many years,&mdash;that he had nothing more to
+      learn about her; but this ripe stroke revived his sense of her audacity.
+      Of course it was what she had been waiting for, and if she had not done it
+      sooner it was because she had hoped he would be lost at sea in one of his
+      long cruises and relieve her of the necessity of a crime. How she must
+      hate him to-day for not having been lost, for being alive, for continuing
+      to put her in the wrong! Much as she hated him, however, his own loathing
+      was at least a match for hers. She had done him the foulest of wrongs,&mdash;she
+      had ravaged his life. That he should ever detest in this degree a woman
+      whom he had once loved as he loved her, he would not have thought possible
+      in his innocent younger years. But he would not have thought it possible
+      then that a woman should be such a cold-blooded devil as she had been. His
+      love had perished in his rage,&mdash;his blinding, impotent rage at
+      finding that he had been duped, and measuring his impotence. When he
+      learned, years before, from Mrs. Portico, what she had done with her baby,
+      of whose entrance into life she herself had given him no intimation, he
+      felt that he was face to face with a full revelation of her nature. Before
+      that it had puzzled him; it had amazed him; his relations with her were
+      bewildering, stupefying. But when, after obtaining, with difficulty and
+      delay, a leave of absence from Government, and betaking himself to Italy
+      to look for the child and assume possession of it, he had encountered
+      absolute failure and defeat,&mdash;then the case presented itself to him
+      more simply. He perceived that he had mated himself with a creature who
+      just happened to be a monster, a human exception altogether. That was what
+      he could n&rsquo;t pardon&mdash;her conduct about the child; never, never,
+      never! To him she might have done what she chose,&mdash;dropped him,
+      pushed him out into eternal cold, with his hands fast tied,&mdash;and he
+      would have accepted it, excused her almost, admitted that it had been his
+      business to mind better what he was about. But she had tortured him
+      through the poor little irrecoverable son whom he had never seen, through
+      the heart and the vitals that she had not herself, and that he had to
+      have, poor wretch, for both of them!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All his efforts for years had been to forget these horrible months, and he
+      had cut himself off from them so that they seemed at times to belong to
+      the life of another person. But to-night he lived them over again; he
+      retraced the different gradations of darkness through which he had passed,
+      from the moment, so soon after his extraordinary marriage, when it came
+      over him that she already repented, and meant, if possible, to elude all
+      her obligations. This was the moment when he saw why she had reserved
+      herself&mdash;in the strange vow she extracted from him&mdash;an open door
+      for retreat; the moment, too, when her having had such an inspiration (in
+      the midst of her momentary good faith, if good faith it had ever been)
+      struck him as a proof of her essential depravity. What he had tried to
+      forget came back to him: the child that was not his child produced for him
+      when he fell upon that squalid nest of peasants in the Genoese country;
+      and then the confessions, retractations, contradictions, lies, terrors,
+      threats, and general bottomless, baffling baseness of every one in the
+      place. The child was gone; that had been the only definite thing. The
+      woman who had taken it to nurse had a dozen different stories,&mdash;her
+      husband had as many,&mdash;and every one in the village had a hundred
+      more. Georgina had been sending money,&mdash;she had managed, apparently,
+      to send a good deal,&mdash;and the whole country seemed to have been
+      living on it and making merry. At one moment the baby had died and
+      received a most expensive burial; at another he had been intrusted (for
+      more healthy air, Santissima Madonna!) to the woman&rsquo;s cousin in another
+      village. According to a version, which for a day or two Benyon had
+      inclined to think the least false, he had been taken by the cousin (for
+      his beauty&rsquo;s sake) to Genoa (when she went for the first time in her life
+      to the town to see her daughter in service there), and had been confided
+      for a few hours to a third woman, who was to keep him while the cousin
+      walked about the streets, but who, having no child of her own, took such a
+      fancy to him that she refused to give him up, and a few days later left
+      the place (she was a Pisana) never to be heard of more. The cousin had
+      forgotten her name,&mdash;it had happened six months before. Benyon spent
+      a year looking up and down Italy for his child, and inspecting hundreds of
+      swaddled infants, impenetrable candidates for recognition. Of course he
+      could only get further and further from real knowledge, and his search was
+      arrested by the conviction that it was making him mad. He set his teeth
+      and made up his mind (or tried to) that the baby had died in the hands of
+      its nurse. This was, after all, much the likeliest supposition, and the
+      woman had maintained it, in the hope of being rewarded for her candor,
+      quite as often as she had asseverated that it was still, somewhere, alive,
+      in the hope of being remunerated for her good news. It may be imagined
+      with what sentiments toward his wife Benyon had emerged from this episode.
+      To-night his memory went further back,&mdash;back to the beginning and to
+      the days when he had had to ask himself, with all the crudity of his first
+      surprise, what in the name of wantonness she had wished to do with him.
+      The answer to this speculation was so old,&mdash;it had dropped so ont of
+      the line of recurrence,&mdash;that it was now almost new again. Moreover,
+      it was only approximate, for, as I have already said, he could comprehend
+      such conduct as little at the end as at the beginning. She had found
+      herself on a slope which her nature forced her to descend to the bottom.
+      She did him the honor of wishing to enjoy his society, and she did herself
+      the honor of thinking that their intimacy&mdash;however brief&mdash;must
+      have a certain consecration. She felt that, with him, after his promise
+      (he would have made any promise to lead her on), she was secure,&mdash;secure
+      as she had proved to be, secure as she must think herself now. That
+      security had helped her to ask herself, after the first flush of passion
+      was over, and her native, her twice-inherited worldliness had bad time to
+      open its eyes again, why she should keep faith with a man whose
+      deficiencies (as a husband before the world&mdash;another affair) had been
+      so scientifically exposed to her by her parents. So she had simply
+      determined not to keep faith; and her determination, at least, she did
+      keep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time Benyon turned in he had satisfied himself, as I say, that
+      Georgina was now in his power; and this seemed to him such an improvement
+      in his situation that he allowed himself (for the next ten days) a license
+      which made Kate Theory almost as happy as it made her sister, though she
+      pretended to understand it far less. Mildred sank to her rest, or rose to
+      fuller comprehensions, within the year, in the Isle of Wight, and Captain
+      Benyon, who had never written so many letters as since they left Naples,
+      sailed westward about the same time as the sweet survivor. For the
+      &ldquo;Louisiana&rdquo; at last was ordered home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Certainly, I will see you if you come, and you may appoint any day or hour
+      you like. I should have seen you with pleasure any time these last years.
+      Why should we not be friends, as we used to be? Perhaps we shall be yet. I
+      say &ldquo;perhaps&rdquo; only, on purpose,&mdash;because your note is rather vague
+      about your state of mind. Don&rsquo;t come with any idea about making me nervous
+      or uncomfortable. I am not nervous by nature, thank Heaven, and I won&rsquo;t&mdash;I
+      positively won&rsquo;t (do you hear, dear Captain Benyon?)&mdash;be
+      uncomfortable. I have been so (it served me right) for years and years;
+      but I am very happy now. To remain so is the very definite intention of,
+      yours ever,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Georgina Roy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the answer Benyon received to a short letter that he despatched
+      to Mrs. Roy after his return to America. It was not till he had been there
+      some weeks that he wrote to her. He had been occupied in various ways: he
+      had had to look after his ship; he had had to report at Washington; he had
+      spent a fortnight with his mother at Portsmouth, N. H.; and he had paid a
+      visit to Kate Theory in Boston. She herself was paying visits, she was
+      staying with various relatives and friends. She had more color&mdash;it
+      was very delicately rosy&mdash;than she had had of old, in spite of her
+      black dress; and the effect of looking at him seemed to him to make her
+      eyes grow still prettier. Though sisterless now, she was not without
+      duties, and Benyon could easily see that life would press hard on her
+      unless some one should interfere. Every one regarded her as just the
+      person to do certain things. Every one thought she could do everything,
+      because she had nothing else to do. She used to read to the blind, and,
+      more onerously, to the deaf. She looked after other people&rsquo;s children
+      while the parents attended anti-slavery conventions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was coming to New York later to spend a week at her brother&rsquo;s, but
+      beyond this she didn&rsquo;t know what she should do. Benyon felt it to be
+      awkward that he should not be able, just now, to tell her; and this had
+      much to do with his coming to the point, for he accused himself of having
+      rather hung fire. Coming to the point, for Benyon, meant writing a note to
+      Mrs. Roy (as he must call her), in which he asked whether she would see
+      him if he should present himself. The missive was short; it contained, in
+      addition to what I have noted, little more than the remark that he had
+      something of importance to say to her. Her reply, which we have just read,
+      was prompt. Benyon designated an hour, and the next day rang the doorbell
+      of her big modern house, whose polished windows seemed to shine defiance
+      at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he stood on the steps, looking up and down the straight vista of the
+      Fifth Avenue, he perceived that he was trembling a little, that <i>he</i>
+      was nervous, if she was not. He was ashamed of his agitation, and he
+      addressed himself a very stern reprimand. Afterwards he saw that what had
+      made him nervous was not any doubt of the goodness of his cause, but his
+      revived sense (as he drew near her) of his wife&rsquo;s hardness,&mdash;her
+      capacity for insolence. He might only break himself against that, and the
+      prospect made him feel helpless. She kept him waiting for a long time
+      after he had been introduced; and as he walked up and down her
+      drawing-room, an immense, florid, expensive apartment, covered with blue
+      satin, gilding, mirrors and bad frescos, it came over him as a certainty
+      that her delay was calculated. She wished to annoy him, to weary him; she
+      was as ungenerous as she was unscrupulous. It never occurred to him that
+      in spite of the bold words of her note, she, too, might be in a tremor,
+      and if any one in their secret bad suggested that she was afraid to meet
+      him, he would have laughed at this idea. This was of bad omen for the
+      success of his errand; for it showed that he recognized the ground of her
+      presumption,&mdash;his having the superstition of old promises. By the
+      time she appeared, he was flushed,&mdash;very angry. She closed the door
+      behind her, and stood there looking at him, with the width of the room
+      between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first emotion her presence excited was a quick sense of the strange
+      fact that, after all these years of loneliness, such a magnificent person
+      should be his wife. For she was magnificent, in the maturity of her
+      beauty, her head erect, her complexion splendid, her auburn tresses
+      undimmed, a certain plenitude in her very glance. He saw in a moment that
+      she wished to seem to him beautiful, she had endeavored to dress herself
+      to the best effect. Perhaps, after all, it was only for this she had
+      delayed; she wished to give herself every possible touch. For some moments
+      they said nothing; they had not stood face to face for nearly ten years,
+      and they met now as adversaries. No two persons could possibly be more
+      interested in taking each other&rsquo;s measure. It scarcely belonged to
+      Georgina, however, to have too much the air of timidity; and after a
+      moment, satisfied, apparently, that she was not to receive a broadside,
+      she advanced, slowly rubbing her jewelled hands and smiling. He wondered
+      why she should smile, what thought was in her mind. His impressions
+      followed each other with extraordinary quickness of pulse, and now he saw,
+      in addition to what he had already perceived, that she was waiting to take
+      her cue,&mdash;she had determined on no definite line. There was nothing
+      definite about her but her courage; the rest would depend upon him. As for
+      her courage, it seemed to glow in the beauty which grew greater as she
+      came nearer, with her eyes on his and her fixed smile; to be expressed in
+      the very perfume that accompanied her steps. By this time he had got still
+      a further impression, and it was the strangest of all. She was ready for
+      anything, she was capable of anything, she wished to surprise him with her
+      beauty, to remind him that it belonged, after all, at the bottom of
+      everything, to him. She was ready to bribe him, if bribing should be
+      necessary. She had carried on an intrigue before she was twenty; it would
+      be more, rather than less, easy for her, now that she was thirty. All this
+      and more was in her cold, living eyes, as in the prolonged silence they
+      engaged themselves with his; but I must not dwell upon it, for reasons
+      extraneous to the remarkable fact She was a truly amazing creature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Raymond!&rdquo; she said, in a low voice, a voice which might represent either
+      a vague greeting or an appeal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took no heed of the exclamation, but asked her why she had deliberately
+      kept him waiting,&mdash;as if she had not made a fool enough of him
+      already. She could n&rsquo;t suppose it was for his pleasure he had come into
+      the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated a moment,&mdash;still with her smile. &ldquo;I must tell you I
+      have a son,&mdash;the dearest little boy. His nurse happened to be engaged
+      for the moment, and I had to watch him. I am more devoted to him than you
+      might suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He fell back from her a few steps. &ldquo;I wonder if you are insane,&rdquo; he
+      murmured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To allude to my child? Why do you ask me such questions then? I tell you
+      the simple truth. I take every care of this one. I am older and wiser. The
+      other one was a complete mistake; he had no right to exist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you kill him then with your own hands, instead of that
+      torture?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did n&rsquo;t I kill myself? That question would be more to the point You
+      are looking wonderfully well,&rdquo; she broke off in another tone; &ldquo;had n&rsquo;t we
+      better sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did n&rsquo;t come here for the advantage of conversation,&rdquo; Benyon answered.
+      And he was going on, but she interrupted him&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You came to say something dreadful, very likely; though I hoped you would
+      see it was better not But just tell me this before you begin. Are you
+      successful, are you happy? It has been so provoking, not knowing more
+      about you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was something in the manner in which this was said that caused him
+      to break into a loud laugh; whereupon she added,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your laugh is just what it used to be. How it comes back to me! You <i>have</i>
+      improved in appearance,&rdquo; she went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had seated herself, though he remained standing; and she leaned back
+      in a low, deep chair, looking up at him, with her arms folded. He stood
+      near her and over her, as it were, dropping his baffled eyes on her, with
+      his hand resting on the corner of the chimney-piece. &ldquo;Has it never
+      occurred to you that I may deem myself absolved from the promise made you
+      before I married you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very often, of course. But I have instantly dismissed the idea. How can
+      you be &lsquo;absolved&rsquo;? One promises, or one doesn&rsquo;t. I attach no meaning to
+      that, and neither do you.&rdquo; And she glanced down to the front of her dress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon listened, but he went on as if he had not heard her. &ldquo;What I came
+      to say to you is this: that I should like your consent to my bringing a
+      suit for divorce against you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A suit for divorce? I never thought of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that I may marry another woman. I can easily obtain a divorce on the
+      ground of your desertion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stared a moment, then her smile solidified, as it were, and she looked
+      grave; but he could see that her gravity, with her lifted eyebrows, was
+      partly assumed. &ldquo;Ah, you want to marry another woman!&rdquo; she exclaimed,
+      slowly, thoughtfully. He said nothing, and she went on: &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you do
+      as I have done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I don&rsquo;t want my children to be&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he could say the words she sprang up, checking him with a cry.
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t say it; it is n&rsquo;t necessary! Of course I know what you mean; but
+      they won&rsquo;t be if no one knows it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should object to knowing it myself; it&rsquo;s enough for me to know it of
+      yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I have been prepared for your saying that&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should hope so!&rdquo; Benyon exclaimed. &ldquo;You may be a bigamist if it suits
+      you, but to me the idea is not attractive. I wish to marry&mdash;&rdquo; and,
+      hesitating a moment, with his slight stammer, he repeated, &ldquo;I wish to
+      marry&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marry, then, and have done with it!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Roy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could already see that he should be able to extract no consent from
+      her; he felt rather sick. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s extraordinary to me that you should n&rsquo;t be
+      more afraid of being found out,&rdquo; he said after a moment&rsquo;s reflection.
+      &ldquo;There are two or three possible accidents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know how much afraid I am? I have thought of every accident,
+      in dreadful nights. How do you know what my life is, or what it has been
+      all these miserable years?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You look wasted and worn, certainly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, don&rsquo;t compliment me!&rdquo; Georgina exclaimed. &ldquo;If I had never known you&mdash;if
+      I had not been through all this&mdash;I believe I should have been
+      handsome. When did you hear of my marriage? Where were you at the time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At Naples, more than six months ago, by a mere chance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How strange that it should have taken you so long! Is the lady a
+      Neapolitan? They don&rsquo;t mind what they do over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no information to give you beyond what I just said,&rdquo; Benyon
+      rejoined. &ldquo;My life does n&rsquo;t in the least regard you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, but it does from the moment I refuse to let you divorce me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You refuse?&rdquo; Benyon said softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t look at me that way! You have n&rsquo;t advanced so rapidly as I used to
+      think you would; you haven&rsquo;t distinguished yourself so much,&rdquo; she went on,
+      irrelevantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be promoted commodore one of these days,&rdquo; Benyon answered. &ldquo;You
+      don&rsquo;t know much about it, for my advancement has already been very
+      exceptionally rapid.&rdquo; He blushed as soon as the words were out of his
+      mouth. She gave a light laugh on seeing it; but he took up his hat and
+      added: &ldquo;Think over a day or two what I have proposed to you. Think of the
+      temper in which I ask it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The temper?&rdquo; she stared. &ldquo;Pray, what have you to do with temper?&rdquo; And as
+      he made no reply, smoothing his hat with his glove, she went on: &ldquo;Years
+      ago, as much as you please I you had a good right, I don&rsquo;t deny, and you
+      raved, in your letters, to your heart&rsquo;s content That&rsquo;s why I would n&rsquo;t see
+      you; I did n&rsquo;t wish to take it full in the face. But that&rsquo;s all over now,
+      time is a healer, you have cooled off, and by your own admission you have
+      consoled yourself. Why do you talk to me about temper! What in the world
+      have I done to you, but let you alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you call this business?&rdquo; Benyon asked, with his eye flashing all
+      over the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, excuse me, that doesn&rsquo;t touch you,&mdash;it&rsquo;s my affair. I leave you
+      your liberty, and I can live as I like. If I choose to live in this way,
+      it may be queer (I admit it is, awfully), but you have nothing to say to
+      it. If I am willing to take the risk, you may be. If I am willing to play
+      such an infernal trick upon a confiding gentleman (I will put it as
+      strongly as you possibly could), I don&rsquo;t see what you have to say to it
+      except that you are tremendously glad such a woman as that is n&rsquo;t known to
+      be your wife!&rdquo; She had been cool and deliberate up to this time; but with
+      these words her latent agitation broke out &ldquo;Do you think I have been
+      happy? Do you think I have enjoyed existence? Do you see me freezing up
+      into a stark old maid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder you stood out so long!&rdquo; said Benyon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder I did. They were bad years.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no doubt they were!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could do as you pleased,&rdquo; Georgina went on. &ldquo;You roamed about the
+      world; you formed charming relations. I am delighted to hear it from your
+      own lips. Think of my going back to my father&rsquo;s house&mdash;that family
+      vault&mdash;and living there, year after year, as Miss Gressie! If you
+      remember my father and mother&mdash;they are round in Twelfth Street, just
+      the same&mdash;you must admit that I paid for my folly!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never understood you; I don&rsquo;t understand you now,&rdquo; said Benyon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him a moment. &ldquo;I adored you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I could damn you with a word!&rdquo; he went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment he had spoken she grasped his arm and held up her other hand,
+      as if she were listening to a sound outside the room. She had evidently
+      had an inspiration, and she carried it into instant effect She swept away
+      to the door, flung it open, and passed into the hall, whence her voice
+      came back to Benyon as she addressed a person who was apparently her
+      husband. She had heard him enter the house at his habitual hour, after his
+      long morning at business; the closing of the door of the vestibule had
+      struck her ear. The parlor was on a level with the hall, and she greeted
+      him without impediment. She asked him to come in and be introduced to
+      Captain Benyon, and he responded with due solemnity. She returned in
+      advance of him, her eyes fixed upon Benyon and lighted with defiance, her
+      whole face saying to him, vividly: &ldquo;Here is your opportunity; I give it to
+      you with my own hands. Break your promise and betray me if you dare! You
+      say you can damn me with a word: speak the word and let us see!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon&rsquo;s heart beat faster, as he felt that it was indeed a chance; but
+      half his emotion came from the spectacle&mdash;magnificent in its way&mdash;of
+      her unparalleled impudence. A sense of all that he had escaped in not
+      having had to live with her rolled over him like a wave, while he looked
+      strangely at Mr. Roy, to whom this privilege had been vouchsafed. He saw
+      in a moment his successor had a constitution that would carry it. Mr. Roy
+      suggested squareness and solidity; he was a broadbased, comfortable,
+      polished man, with a surface in which the rank tendrils of irritation
+      would not easily obtain a foothold. He had a broad, blank face, a
+      capacious mouth, and a small, light eye, to which, as he entered, he was
+      engaged in adjusting a double gold-rimmed glass. He approached Benyon with
+      a prudent, civil, punctual air, as if he habitually met a good many
+      gentlemen in the course of business, and though, naturally, this was not
+      that sort of occasion he was not a man to waste time in preliminaries.
+      Benyon had immediately the impression of having seen him&mdash;or his
+      equivalent&mdash;a thousand times before. He was middle-aged,
+      fresh-colored, whiskered, prosperous, indefinite. Georgina introduced them
+      to each other. She spoke of Benyon as an old friend whom she had known
+      long before she had known Mr. Roy, who had been very kind to her years
+      ago, when she was a girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s in the navy. He has just come back from a long cruise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Hoy shook hands,&mdash;Benyon gave him his before he knew it,&mdash;said
+      he was very happy, smiled, looked at Benyon from head to foot, then at
+      Georgina, then round the room, then back at Benyon again,&mdash;at Benyon,
+      who stood there, without sound or movement, with a dilated eye, and a
+      pulse quickened to a degree of which Mr. Roy could have little idea.
+      Georgina made some remark about their sitting down, but William Roy
+      replied that he had n&rsquo;t time for that,&mdash;if Captain Benyon would
+      excuse him. He should have to go straight into the library, and write a
+      note to send back to his office, where, as he just remembered, he had
+      neglected to give, in leaving the place, an important direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can wait a moment, surely,&rdquo; Georgina said. &ldquo;Captain Benyon wants so
+      much to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes, my dear; I can wait a minute, and I can come back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon saw, accordingly, that he was waiting, and that Georgina was
+      waiting too. Each was waiting for him to say something, though they were
+      waiting for different things. Mr. Roy put his hands behind him, balanced
+      himself on his toes, hoped that Captain Benyon had enjoyed his cruise,&mdash;though
+      he should n&rsquo;t care much for the navy himself,&mdash;and evidently wondered
+      at the stolidity of his wife&rsquo;s visitor. Benyon knew he was speaking, for
+      he indulged in two or three more observations, after which he stopped. But
+      his meaning was not present to our hero. This personage was conscious of
+      only one thing, of his own momentary power,&mdash;of everything that hung
+      on his lips; all the rest swam before him; there was vagueness in his ears
+      and eyes. Mr. Roy stopped, as I say, and there was a pause, which seemed
+      to Benyon of tremendous length. He knew, while it lasted, that Georgina
+      was as conscious as himself that he felt his opportunity, that he held it
+      there in his hand, weighing it noiselessly in the palm, and that she
+      braved and scorned, or, rather, that she enjoyed, the danger. He asked
+      himself whether he should be able to speak if he were to try, and then he
+      knew that he should not, that the words would stick in his throat, that he
+      should make sounds that would dishonor his cause. There was no real choice
+      or decision, then, on Benyon&rsquo;s part; his silence was after all the same
+      old silence, the fruit of other hours and places, the stillness to which
+      Georgina listened, while he felt her eager eyes fairly eat into his face,
+      so that his cheeks burned with the touch of them. The moments stood before
+      him in their turn; each one was distinct. &ldquo;Ah, well,&rdquo; said Mr. Roy,
+      &ldquo;perhaps I interrupt,&mdash;I &lsquo;ll just dash off my note&rdquo; Benyon knew that
+      he was rather bewildered, that he was making a pretext, that he was
+      leaving the room; knew presently that Georgina again stood before him
+      alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are exactly the man I thought you!&rdquo; she announced, as joyously as if
+      she had won a bet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are the most horrible woman I can imagine. Good God! if I <i>had</i>
+      had to live with you!&rdquo; That is what he said to her in answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even at this she never flushed; she continued to smile in triumph. &ldquo;He
+      adores me&mdash;but what&rsquo;s that to you? Of course you have all the
+      future,&rdquo; she went on; &ldquo;but I know you as if I had made you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon reflected a moment &ldquo;If he adores you, you are all right. If our
+      divorce is pronounced, you will be free, and then he can marry you
+      properly, which he would like ever so much better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s too touching to hear you reason about it. Fancy me telling such a
+      hideous story&mdash;about myself&mdash;me&mdash;<i>me</i>!&rdquo; And she
+      touched her breasts with her white fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benyon gave her a look that was charged with all the sickness of his
+      helpless rage. &ldquo;You&mdash;<i>you</i>!&rdquo; he repeated, as he turned away from
+      her and passed through the door which Mr. Roy had left open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She followed him into the hall, she was close behind him; he moved before
+      her as she pressed. &ldquo;There was one more reason,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I would n&rsquo;t be
+      forbidden. It was my hideous pride. That&rsquo;s what prevents me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care what it is,&rdquo; Benyon answered, wearily, with his hand on the
+      knob of the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She laid hers on his shoulder; he stood there an instant feeling it,
+      wishing that her loathsome touch gave him the right to strike her to the
+      earth,&mdash;to strike her so that she should never rise again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How clever you are, and intelligent always,&mdash;as you used to be; to
+      feel so perfectly and know so well, without more scenes, that it&rsquo;s
+      hopeless&mdash;my ever consenting! If I have, with you, the shame of
+      having made you promise, let me at least have the profit!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His back had been turned to her, but at this he glanced round. &ldquo;To hear
+      you talk of shame&mdash;!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know what I have gone through; but, of course, I don&rsquo;t ask any
+      pity from you. Only I should like to say something kind to you before we
+      part I admire you, esteem you: I don&rsquo;t many people! Who will ever tell
+      her, if you don&rsquo;t? How will she ever know, then? She will be as safe as I
+      am. You know what that is,&rdquo; said Georgina, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had opened the door while she spoke, apparently not heeding her,
+      thinking only of getting away from her forever. In reality he heard every
+      word she said, and felt to his marrow the lowered, suggestive tone in
+      which she made him that last recommendation. Outside, on the steps&mdash;she
+      stood there in the doorway&mdash;he gave her his last look. &ldquo;I only hope
+      you will die. I shall pray for that!&rdquo; And he descended into the street and
+      took his way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was after this that his real temptation came. Not the temptation to
+      return betrayal for betrayal; that passed away even in a few days, for he
+      simply knew that he couldn&rsquo;t break his promise, that it imposed itself on
+      him as stubbornly as the color of his eyes or the stammer of his lips; it
+      had gone forth into the world to live for itself, and was far beyond his
+      reach or his authority. But the temptation to go through the form of a
+      marriage with Kate Theory, to let her suppose that he was as free as
+      herself, and that their children, if they should have any, would, before
+      the law, have a right to exist,&mdash;this attractive idea held him fast
+      for many weeks, and caused him to pass some haggard nights and days. It
+      was perfectly possible she might learn his secret, and that, as no one
+      could either suspect it or have an interest in bringing it to light, they
+      both might live and die in security and honor. This vision fascinated him;
+      it was, I say, a real temptation. He thought of other solutions,&mdash;of
+      telling her that he was married (without telling her to whom), and
+      inducing her to overlook such an accident, and content herself with a
+      ceremony in which the world would see no flaw. But after all the
+      contortions of his spirit it remained as clear to him as before that
+      dishonor was in everything but renunciation. So, at last, he renounced. He
+      took two steps which attested ths act to himself. He addressed an urgent
+      request to the Secretary of the Navy that he might, with as little delay
+      as possible, be despatched on another long voyage; and he returned to
+      Boston to tell Kate Theory that they must wait. He could explain so little
+      that, say what he would, he was aware that he could not make his conduct
+      seem natural, and he saw that the girl only trusted him,&mdash;that she
+      never understood. She trusted without understanding, and she agreed to
+      wait. When the writer of these pages last heard of the pair they were
+      waiting still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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